


Hogwarts Retold: The Philosopher's Stone

by CtheGuitarman



Series: Hogwarts Retold [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, day in the limelight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 50,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1359709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CtheGuitarman/pseuds/CtheGuitarman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What of the ones who we never knew? What about the untold stories of the unknown students? Three girls start Hogwarts in the same year as a very famous young boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Journey from Platform 9 3/4

Lily Moon stared out of the window and tried to ignore the other people in the compartment with her. They were being loud and raucous and, in her opinion, rather silly. She understood from their conversations that at least one of them was muggle-born, but surely the other three should have known about Hogwarts. And what was there to find exciting about it when you were a wizard? You wouldn’t get excited about going to Chatham-upon-Trent Primary and Middle School would you? What made Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry worthy of such exuberance?  
She slipped a hand under her robes and tapped her wand lightly with one finger. Pine and unicorn tail-hair, ten inches long. Ollivander had described it as ‘an individual wand, but in the right hands highly creative.’ She had no idea what he meant; she had never been creative before.  
A boy with flaming red hair walked past and poked his head round the door, his face falling when he saw there was no room there. He was carrying a rat and looking very forlorn in slightly baggy clothes, his nose smudged with something indeterminate. She fixed him with a glare until he had left and then returned to staring out of the window as they left London properly and were out into fields.  
The noise level was increasing as the others realised that the journey had properly begun, and it was becoming impossible for her to think at all. Just as she was beginning to wonder if she could work the hex she had looked up in her older cousin’s Defence book someone burst into the carriage and yelled, “There’s an acromantula got loose in the prefects’ carriage!”  
As if they had been waiting for the boy’s arrival, the other kids in the carriage jumped up and rushed out into the corridor, followed by another mass of screaming and whooping students, some of whom looked much older than first year. She sighed and took her fingers off her wand.  
“Oh good,” The voice was far too cheerful, and Lily looked up in shock to see a girl with stunning golden hair standing in the doorway. She was dressed in muggle clothing, hauling a cat basket in one hand and a heavy looking book in the other. “I was beginning to think I would just have to sit in the corridor.”  
Without invitation she hauled the cat and the book into the compartment and dumped them both in the seat opposite Lily, sitting and smiling far too broadly as she extended a hand, “I’m Sally-Anne, it’s nice to meet you…”  
“Lily,” She took the other girl’s hand gingerly and shook it, “Lily Moon.”  
“That’s a very pretty name,” Sally-Anne declared, “Mine’s awfully dull isn’t it?”  
“I wouldn’t know.” Lily was used to her cousins, who were all named after absurd things like constellations and star signs. She supposed Sally-Anne was dull when compared to that, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud.  
“Do you know anything about Hogwarts?”  
There was something in the slightly unfamiliar way she pronounced the name, like she was still getting used to saying it, that caught Lily’s attention, “You’re a muggle-born?” She asked.  
“What’s a muggle?”  
“Are either of your parents magical?”  
Sally-Anne shrugged, “I don’t know. My mum seems like she has eyes in the back of her head sometimes but I don’t know about magic magic like I saw in Diagonalley.” Again, the pause, the mispronunciation.  
“A muggle is someone who doesn’t have magic,” Lily explained, “And a muggle-born is a witch or wizard who is born to muggle parents.”  
“Oh.” Sally-Anne processed that information for a few seconds, then asked, “Are your parents muggles?”  
Lily snorted, “No, both of my parents are magical. My entire family are magical actually. Well, I think there’s one or two in there with a little less talent, but we don’t talk about them.”  
“Wow.” It seemed that Sally-Anne thought she was fascinating, but before she could ask any more questions another girl walked in and sighed in relief.  
“Thank heavens,” She said; sinking into the chair next to Lily, “I only just got away from that mob around the prefects’ carriage. I didn’t think I’d be able to find another free carriage.”  
Lily wanted to point out that the carriage wasn’t free, only the seat, but she refrained and tried to return to looking out of the window. Sally-Anne was still curious though, “Are your parents magical?” She asked the newcomer, who blinked a few times.  
“Hello,” She said dryly, “I’m Lisa Turpin; it’s nice to meet you.”  
“Oh, sorry,” Sally-Anne didn’t sound very sorry, but she held out her hand again anyway, “I’m Sally-Anne Perks, and this is Lily Moon, her parents are magical, mine aren’t.”  
Lisa blinked again, “My mother is a witch, my father is a muggle,” She turned and smiled at Lily, “It’s nice to meet you both.”  
Lily nodded non-committaly, but as she realised that her new carriage-mates weren’t going to be making the sort of ruckus her previous ones had she decided to at least try and interact with them. “So have you heard of Hogwarts before?” She asked Lisa.  
The other girl nodded, “My mother always talked about it. Apparently she told my father when she was about to have me, and he’s been looking forward to being able to see it all ever since then.”  
Lily frowned, “He couldn’t just go along beforehand?”  
“He said he wanted it to be a big ‘family thing.’” She rolled her eyes, “We had to wait until I was going to Hogwarts, then we’d both get to experience it properly together.”  
“I didn’t know anything about it until I got my letter,” Sally-Anne blurted, “This woman came round with the letter and said she had to talk to us about it, because it meant I would be going to a special school. My parents didn’t believe her until she changed a teacup into a mouse. When my mother came round they had all sorts of questions.”  
“Did you go to Diagon Alley on your own?” Lily asked.  
“My dad came with me; mum said it would be too much for her. The goblins were a bit freaky to be honest.” She admitted sheepishly, staring at her shoes. “But getting my wand was cool.”  
“And you got a cat as well?”  
She nodded, turning the basket a little so they could both see the tabby inside, “He’s a bit useless really. I’m calling him Tabby after a book I read once.”  
The cat regarded them with sad eyes and curled up into a ball, peeping out from underneath his tail. Sally-Anne turned him back again, “Sorry about that, he hasn’t really taken to anyone.”  
Lily shrugged; she wasn’t really interested in pets, even if it was ‘traditional.’ “So what about your wands?” She asked.  
Lisa pulled a long box out of her small rucksack and opened it reverently, “Elm and Dragon Heartstring,” She said softly, “Very powerful.” She took the wand out and waved it once, sending a spray of blue and silver sparks across the carriage, causing Sally-Anne to erupt into a wild round of applause. Smiling faintly, Lisa returned the wand to its box and left it on the seat next to her.  
Lily drew her own wand from its inner pocket, “Pine and unicorn tail hair.” She flicked the end slightly and a ring of smoke erupted from the end. She managed to conceal her own look of surprise, not having known that that would happen, and returned the wand to its pocket.  
They looked expectantly at Sally-Anne, who reached into the book she had brought and extracted the wand, which had been acting as a makeshift bookmark. Lily felt her eyebrows rising at the use of a wand in such a way, but Sally-Anne gave it an exuberant wave before she could say anything.  
The door to the carriage slammed open, then closed again, as a gust of freezing air rushed through. Lily bundled her robes closer to her chest and tried to look unruffled, which wasn’t easy when her ponytail had come loose and left her unable to see through the thick mass of hair that had fallen over her face.  
“Wow,” Sally-Anne was practically bouncing on her seat as she stared at the wand, “It didn’t do anything like that in the shop.”  
“Maybe you should put it down,” Lisa said delicately, edging away slightly as the tip of the wand veered dangerously in her direction.  
“Yeah,” Sally-Anne slid it back into the book, “Dogwood and unicorn-tail hair,” She said proudly, “Mr Ollivander just gave me a funny look when he gave it to me, he didn’t say anything about it being powerful or anything.”  
Lily knew a little about wandlore, but she had never heard of a dogwood wand before. She resolved to try and see it in action when Sally-Anne was a little more trained.  
“So, Sally-Anne,” She said with a slightly forced calm, “What book are you reading.”  
“Call me Sally; Sally-Anne is a bit too much of a mouthful.” She turned the book over so they could see the title more clearly.  
“Hogwarts, a History.” Lily smiled, “You’re really trying to get through that thing?”  
“I’ve already read it twice,” Sally said excitedly, “I think it’s incredible. Is the ceiling in the Great Hall really enchanted? Does the whole layout change? Doesn’t that get confusing? Like how would know if you were going down the right hallway to get to a class from one day to the next? And are there really ghosts for each house? And what are the houses anyway?”  
Lily exchanged a look with Lisa, who looked just as bug-eyed at the volley of questions.  
“Well,” Lisa said slowly, “For starters, yes, the ceiling in the Great Hall really is enchanted to look like the sky outside.”  
*  
For the next few hours Lily and Lisa tried to keep up with all the questions Sally could throw their way, and without even noticing it they shared quite a lot about themselves as well. Sally was more than willing to reciprocate, telling them all about how incredible it was to suddenly go from being a regular person going to Cringleford CE VA Primary and Middle School to walking round a part of London that shouldn’t exist and buying a wand and robes and everything.  
In return Lisa told them about how her mother had often regaled her with tales of all the things that had happened to her at Hogwarts, and how there had been a group of younger boys who were well known troublemakers, and had often caused mayhem by causing all the toilets on odd-numbered floors to reverse when flushed, or setting off fireworks in the Great Hall in the middle of breakfast. “They called themselves the Marauders,” Lisa recalled, “And they were the greatest pranksters Hogwarts has ever known.  
Lily stayed quiet about her family, and about her family’s previous experiences at Hogwarts. Instead she talked about what it was like to grow up with magic all around. She found herself getting fascinated by Sally’s description of hairdryers and telephones, while Sally was prodding for more details about Floo Powder and Owl Post.  
“The castle doesn’t change all at once.” Lisa explained patiently, “It‘s more like one or two staircases might lead somewhere different on a Thursday, and you learn which ones are which pretty quickly. I’ve heard that sometimes the dungeons do rearrange themselves completely, but not the paths to the classrooms, more like the bits on the outside that no one goes to except the teachers anyway.”  
The conversation moved on to the houses, the one subject Lily had been dreading the most. She had a more than sneaking suspicion about where she was going to end up, and despite feeling like she could be friends with these girls, she didn’t think they were going to be there as well.  
“So what are the houses?”  
“Well there’s Gryffindor,” Lily said, carefully neutral, “And that’s where people who are brave and courageous and all that go.”  
“And then there’s Ravenclaw,” Lisa eyed Lily with curiosity in her eyes, “Which is for really smart people.”  
“And Hufflepuff, who take the loyal, and the hard working, and basically anyone who wouldn’t fit into one of the big three houses.”  
“And Slytherin?” Sally asked, innocent of the tension that was beginning to form between Lily and Lisa.  
“Slytherin has a reputation.” Lisa said neutrally, “The ambitious get sorted there, but it’s mostly pure-bloods.”  
Sally looked confused, “Hogwarts, a History mentioned there being Dark Wizards, and it said that a lot of them came from Slytherin.”  
“That’s true,” Lily said, knowing she sounded bitter, “But it’s not like every wizard from Slytherin has turned into a Dark Wizard.”  
“Well I think I’d rather be in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw,” Sally decided, “Hufflepuff sounds quite nice as well. I don’t know if I’d be smart enough to get into Ravenclaw, and I don’t know what feeling brave would feel like.”  
“No one does,” Lisa smiled, “My mother was sorted into Gryffindor, but she said that she didn’t feel very brave when they put the hat on her head.”  
Sally nodded at that, and went straight on to asking more questions. Lily stayed quite while Lisa answered. How exactly was she supposed to explain that her entire family had gone into Slytherin? They were almost as Pure-Blood as the Malfoys or the Weasleys for heaven’s sakes!  
*  
As the light began to dim outside, Lily nodded to the other two, “You’ll want to change into your robes soon.”  
The food trolley had been and gone, leaving them with a small pile of goodies to work their way through. Sally had insisted they get one of everything, even though Lily could have done without having Bertie Bott’s in the carriage. She had never yet had one of the supposed ‘nice flavours.’ Sally seemed to love them though, and even when she bit into one that made her gag and cry out, “Mud!” She seemed to enjoy it.  
She pulled the blinds down on the carriage as the other girls pulled their robes on over their muggle clothes. Lily wondered if they knew the robes were supposed to be worn on their own. After all, wearing full body black robes over anything else tended to make one unreasonably hot in summer. She returned to her seat and was about to resume eating her way through a small mound of chocolate frogs when the door was shoved open and three boys came in.  
“Excuse you!” Sally huffed, “Girls changing in here!”  
The leader, a small mouse-faced boy with white hair, ignored her, “We’re looking for some food,” He sneered, “You got any?”  
“For us, yeah,” Lisa straightened, looking absolutely furious at the intrusion.  
“Surely there’s enough to share?” Behind the mouse-faced boy, his two friends flexed their shoulders and cracked their knuckles.  
“You think you can threaten us into giving you food?” The scorn in Lisa’s voice would have made Lily quail if she’d been on the receiving end of it, but the sneering boy shrugged it off.  
“Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this today? Goyle?” He snapped his fingers and the taller of the boys stepped forwards, “Go get us some chocolate frogs.”  
The hulking boy stepped forwards and Lily stood as well, reaching inside her robes, wondering just what she was thinking.  
Lisa got their first, jabbing her wand into the side of Goyle’s nose. “I don’t really know what I’m doing with this,” She said, her voice a little shrill, “But I know it can shoot sparks, and I don’t think that’d be good near your nose.”  
Goyle’s mouth had dropped open and he looked very much like a large and stupid dog suddenly confronted with the wrong end of a rolled up newspaper. Lily drew her own wand and stepped next to Lisa, staring down the boy in charge, “Hello Draco,” she said quietly, “still trying to bully people with your money?”  
Sally snickered at his name and the boy flushed pink, “What of it?”  
“Just wanted to make sure,” Lily waved her wand and it puffed smoke again, which made the other ape nervous, “Why don’t you take your cronies and get lost?”  
Draco’s jaw stiffened, but he nodded to his goons, “Come on boys, let’s find someone a little more sane.”  
As the carriage door closed Lily and Lisa both slumped in their seats, looking first to each other, seeking the note of approval, and then to Sally, whose eyes had gone as wide as saucers, “That was brilliant!”  
Lily Moon stared out of the window and tried to ignore the other people in the compartment with her. They were being loud and raucous and, in her opinion, rather silly. She understood from their conversations that at least one of them was muggle-born, but surely the other three should have known about Hogwarts. And what was there to find exciting about it when you were a wizard? You wouldn’t get excited about going to Chatham-upon-Trent Primary and Middle School would you? What made Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry worthy of such exuberance?  
She slipped a hand under her robes and tapped her wand lightly with one finger. Pine and unicorn tail-hair, ten inches long. Ollivander had described it as ‘an individual wand, but in the right hands highly creative.’ She had no idea what he meant; she had never been creative before.  
A boy with flaming red hair walked past and poked his head round the door, his face falling when he saw there was no room there. He was carrying a rat and looking very forlorn in slightly baggy clothes, his nose smudged with something indeterminate. She fixed him with a glare until he had left and then returned to staring out of the window as they left London properly and were out into fields.  
The noise level was increasing as the others realised that the journey had properly begun, and it was becoming impossible for her to think at all. Just as she was beginning to wonder if she could work the hex she had looked up in her older cousin’s Defence book someone burst into the carriage and yelled, “There’s an acromantula got loose in the prefects’ carriage!”  
As if they had been waiting for the boy’s arrival, the other kids in the carriage jumped up and rushed out into the corridor, followed by another mass of screaming and whooping students, some of whom looked much older than first year. She sighed and took her fingers off her wand.  
“Oh good,” The voice was far too cheerful, and Lily looked up in shock to see a girl with stunning golden hair standing in the doorway. She was dressed in muggle clothing, hauling a cat basket in one hand and a heavy looking book in the other. “I was beginning to think I would just have to sit in the corridor.”  
Without invitation she hauled the cat and the book into the compartment and dumped them both in the seat opposite Lily, sitting and smiling far too broadly as she extended a hand, “I’m Sally-Anne, it’s nice to meet you…”  
“Lily,” She took the other girl’s hand gingerly and shook it, “Lily Moon.”  
“That’s a very pretty name,” Sally-Anne declared, “Mine’s awfully dull isn’t it?”  
“I wouldn’t know.” Lily was used to her cousins, who were all named after absurd things like constellations and star signs. She supposed Sally-Anne was dull when compared to that, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud.  
“Do you know anything about Hogwarts?”  
There was something in the slightly unfamiliar way she pronounced the name, like she was still getting used to saying it, that caught Lily’s attention, “You’re a muggle-born?” She asked.  
“What’s a muggle?”  
“Are either of your parents magical?”  
Sally-Anne shrugged, “I don’t know. My mum seems like she has eyes in the back of her head sometimes but I don’t know about magic magic like I saw in Diagonalley.” Again, the pause, the mispronunciation.  
“A muggle is someone who doesn’t have magic,” Lily explained, “And a muggle-born is a witch or wizard who is born to muggle parents.”  
“Oh.” Sally-Anne processed that information for a few seconds, then asked, “Are your parents muggles?”  
Lily snorted, “No, both of my parents are magical. My entire family are magical actually. Well, I think there’s one or two in there with a little less talent, but we don’t talk about them.”  
“Wow.” It seemed that Sally-Anne thought she was fascinating, but before she could ask any more questions another girl walked in and sighed in relief.  
“Thank heavens,” She said; sinking into the chair next to Lily, “I only just got away from that mob around the prefects’ carriage. I didn’t think I’d be able to find another free carriage.”  
Lily wanted to point out that the carriage wasn’t free, only the seat, but she refrained and tried to return to looking out of the window. Sally-Anne was still curious though, “Are your parents magical?” She asked the newcomer, who blinked a few times.  
“Hello,” She said dryly, “I’m Lisa Turpin; it’s nice to meet you.”  
“Oh, sorry,” Sally-Anne didn’t sound very sorry, but she held out her hand again anyway, “I’m Sally-Anne Perks, and this is Lily Moon, her parents are magical, mine aren’t.”  
Lisa blinked again, “My mother is a witch, my father is a muggle,” She turned and smiled at Lily, “It’s nice to meet you both.”  
Lily nodded non-committaly, but as she realised that her new carriage-mates weren’t going to be making the sort of ruckus her previous ones had she decided to at least try and interact with them. “So have you heard of Hogwarts before?” She asked Lisa.  
The other girl nodded, “My mother always talked about it. Apparently she told my father when she was about to have me, and he’s been looking forward to being able to see it all ever since then.”  
Lily frowned, “He couldn’t just go along beforehand?”  
“He said he wanted it to be a big ‘family thing.’” She rolled her eyes, “We had to wait until I was going to Hogwarts, then we’d both get to experience it properly together.”  
“I didn’t know anything about it until I got my letter,” Sally-Anne blurted, “This woman came round with the letter and said she had to talk to us about it, because it meant I would be going to a special school. My parents didn’t believe her until she changed a teacup into a mouse. When my mother came round they had all sorts of questions.”  
“Did you go to Diagon Alley on your own?” Lily asked.  
“My dad came with me; mum said it would be too much for her. The goblins were a bit freaky to be honest.” She admitted sheepishly, staring at her shoes. “But getting my wand was cool.”  
“And you got a cat as well?”  
She nodded, turning the basket a little so they could both see the tabby inside, “He’s a bit useless really. I’m calling him Tabby after a book I read once.”  
The cat regarded them with sad eyes and curled up into a ball, peeping out from underneath his tail. Sally-Anne turned him back again, “Sorry about that, he hasn’t really taken to anyone.”  
Lily shrugged; she wasn’t really interested in pets, even if it was ‘traditional.’ “So what about your wands?” She asked.  
Lisa pulled a long box out of her small rucksack and opened it reverently, “Elm and Dragon Heartstring,” She said softly, “Very powerful.” She took the wand out and waved it once, sending a spray of blue and silver sparks across the carriage, causing Sally-Anne to erupt into a wild round of applause. Smiling faintly, Lisa returned the wand to its box and left it on the seat next to her.  
Lily drew her own wand from its inner pocket, “Pine and unicorn tail hair.” She flicked the end slightly and a ring of smoke erupted from the end. She managed to conceal her own look of surprise, not having known that that would happen, and returned the wand to its pocket.  
They looked expectantly at Sally-Anne, who reached into the book she had brought and extracted the wand, which had been acting as a makeshift bookmark. Lily felt her eyebrows rising at the use of a wand in such a way, but Sally-Anne gave it an exuberant wave before she could say anything.  
The door to the carriage slammed open, then closed again, as a gust of freezing air rushed through. Lily bundled her robes closer to her chest and tried to look unruffled, which wasn’t easy when her ponytail had come loose and left her unable to see through the thick mass of hair that had fallen over her face.  
“Wow,” Sally-Anne was practically bouncing on her seat as she stared at the wand, “It didn’t do anything like that in the shop.”  
“Maybe you should put it down,” Lisa said delicately, edging away slightly as the tip of the wand veered dangerously in her direction.  
“Yeah,” Sally-Anne slid it back into the book, “Dogwood and unicorn-tail hair,” She said proudly, “Mr Ollivander just gave me a funny look when he gave it to me, he didn’t say anything about it being powerful or anything.”  
Lily knew a little about wandlore, but she had never heard of a dogwood wand before. She resolved to try and see it in action when Sally-Anne was a little more trained.  
“So, Sally-Anne,” She said with a slightly forced calm, “What book are you reading.”  
“Call me Sally; Sally-Anne is a bit too much of a mouthful.” She turned the book over so they could see the title more clearly.  
“Hogwarts, a History.” Lily smiled, “You’re really trying to get through that thing?”  
“I’ve already read it twice,” Sally said excitedly, “I think it’s incredible. Is the ceiling in the Great Hall really enchanted? Does the whole layout change? Doesn’t that get confusing? Like how would know if you were going down the right hallway to get to a class from one day to the next? And are there really ghosts for each house? And what are the houses anyway?”  
Lily exchanged a look with Lisa, who looked just as bug-eyed at the volley of questions.  
“Well,” Lisa said slowly, “For starters, yes, the ceiling in the Great Hall really is enchanted to look like the sky outside.”  
*  
For the next few hours Lily and Lisa tried to keep up with all the questions Sally could throw their way, and without even noticing it they shared quite a lot about themselves as well. Sally was more than willing to reciprocate, telling them all about how incredible it was to suddenly go from being a regular person going to Cringleford CE VA Primary and Middle School to walking round a part of London that shouldn’t exist and buying a wand and robes and everything.  
In return Lisa told them about how her mother had often regaled her with tales of all the things that had happened to her at Hogwarts, and how there had been a group of younger boys who were well known troublemakers, and had often caused mayhem by causing all the toilets on odd-numbered floors to reverse when flushed, or setting off fireworks in the Great Hall in the middle of breakfast. “They called themselves the Marauders,” Lisa recalled, “And they were the greatest pranksters Hogwarts has ever known.  
Lily stayed quiet about her family, and about her family’s previous experiences at Hogwarts. Instead she talked about what it was like to grow up with magic all around. She found herself getting fascinated by Sally’s description of hairdryers and telephones, while Sally was prodding for more details about Floo Powder and Owl Post.  
“The castle doesn’t change all at once.” Lisa explained patiently, “It‘s more like one or two staircases might lead somewhere different on a Thursday, and you learn which ones are which pretty quickly. I’ve heard that sometimes the dungeons do rearrange themselves completely, but not the paths to the classrooms, more like the bits on the outside that no one goes to except the teachers anyway.”  
The conversation moved on to the houses, the one subject Lily had been dreading the most. She had a more than sneaking suspicion about where she was going to end up, and despite feeling like she could be friends with these girls, she didn’t think they were going to be there as well.  
“So what are the houses?”  
“Well there’s Gryffindor,” Lily said, carefully neutral, “And that’s where people who are brave and courageous and all that go.”  
“And then there’s Ravenclaw,” Lisa eyed Lily with curiosity in her eyes, “Which is for really smart people.”  
“And Hufflepuff, who take the loyal, and the hard working, and basically anyone who wouldn’t fit into one of the big three houses.”  
“And Slytherin?” Sally asked, innocent of the tension that was beginning to form between Lily and Lisa.  
“Slytherin has a reputation.” Lisa said neutrally, “The ambitious get sorted there, but it’s mostly pure-bloods.”  
Sally looked confused, “Hogwarts, a History mentioned there being Dark Wizards, and it said that a lot of them came from Slytherin.”  
“That’s true,” Lily said, knowing she sounded bitter, “But it’s not like every wizard from Slytherin has turned into a Dark Wizard.”  
“Well I think I’d rather be in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw,” Sally decided, “Hufflepuff sounds quite nice as well. I don’t know if I’d be smart enough to get into Ravenclaw, and I don’t know what feeling brave would feel like.”  
“No one does,” Lisa smiled, “My mother was sorted into Gryffindor, but she said that she didn’t feel very brave when they put the hat on her head.”  
Sally nodded at that, and went straight on to asking more questions. Lily stayed quite while Lisa answered. How exactly was she supposed to explain that her entire family had gone into Slytherin? They were almost as Pure-Blood as the Malfoys or the Weasleys for heaven’s sakes!  
*  
As the light began to dim outside, Lily nodded to the other two, “You’ll want to change into your robes soon.”  
The food trolley had been and gone, leaving them with a small pile of goodies to work their way through. Sally had insisted they get one of everything, even though Lily could have done without having Bertie Bott’s in the carriage. She had never yet had one of the supposed ‘nice flavours.’ Sally seemed to love them though, and even when she bit into one that made her gag and cry out, “Mud!” She seemed to enjoy it.  
She pulled the blinds down on the carriage as the other girls pulled their robes on over their muggle clothes. Lily wondered if they knew the robes were supposed to be worn on their own. After all, wearing full body black robes over anything else tended to make one unreasonably hot in summer. She returned to her seat and was about to resume eating her way through a small mound of chocolate frogs when the door was shoved open and three boys came in.  
“Excuse you!” Sally huffed, “Girls changing in here!”  
The leader, a small mouse-faced boy with white hair, ignored her, “We’re looking for some food,” He sneered, “You got any?”  
“For us, yeah,” Lisa straightened, looking absolutely furious at the intrusion.  
“Surely there’s enough to share?” Behind the mouse-faced boy, his two friends flexed their shoulders and cracked their knuckles.  
“You think you can threaten us into giving you food?” The scorn in Lisa’s voice would have made Lily quail if she’d been on the receiving end of it, but the sneering boy shrugged it off.  
“Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this today? Goyle?” He snapped his fingers and the taller of the boys stepped forwards, “Go get us some chocolate frogs.”  
The hulking boy stepped forwards and Lily stood as well, reaching inside her robes, wondering just what she was thinking.  
Lisa got their first, jabbing her wand into the side of Goyle’s nose. “I don’t really know what I’m doing with this,” She said, her voice a little shrill, “But I know it can shoot sparks, and I don’t think that’d be good near your nose.”  
Goyle’s mouth had dropped open and he looked very much like a large and stupid dog suddenly confronted with the wrong end of a rolled up newspaper. Lily drew her own wand and stepped next to Lisa, staring down the boy in charge, “Hello Draco,” she said quietly, “still trying to bully people with your money?”  
Sally snickered at his name and the boy flushed pink, “What of it?”  
“Just wanted to make sure,” Lily waved her wand and it puffed smoke again, which made the other ape nervous, “Why don’t you take your cronies and get lost?”  
Draco’s jaw stiffened, but he nodded to his goons, “Come on boys, let’s find someone a little more sane.”  
As the carriage door closed Lily and Lisa both slumped in their seats, looking first to each other, seeking the note of approval, and then to Sally, whose eyes had gone as wide as saucers, “That was brilliant!”


	2. The Sorting Ceremony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily, Lisa and Sally are sorted.

Chapter Two: The Sorting Ceremony

“Firs’ years, firs’ years over here, hey there Harry.”  
There was a giant standing on the platform, a lamp the size of sink in his hands and a beard that resembled a sheepdog. Lily stopped abruptly when she saw him and someone crashed into her from behind, sending them both sprawling on the platform.  
“I’m so sorry,” The girl smiled up at her, revealing buck teeth and a mass of bushy hair, didn’t see you stop.”  
“No, it was my fault,” She said, helping the other girl up, “Just a bit of a shock.” She gestured towards the gamekeeper, who was gathering the first years around himself and starting to count heads. They hurried over, Lily spotting Lisa and Sally and making towards them, “What’s your name.”  
“I’m Hermione Granger.” The other girl shook her hand, “Isn’t this just incredible?”  
“Yeah,” Lily finally allowed herself a small smile, she was finally here.  
Lily piled into a boat with Lisa and Sally, and they set off, the water around them as black as the sky above. The stars were shining brightly, and despite the bitter cold of the wind that was piercing through their clothes most of the students were partially standing in the boats to try and get a glimpse of the castle before it could appear.  
And then it did.  
Lily felt her eyes widen as she saw it for the first time, appearing like something out of a fairytale, rising out of the blackness of the land and lit with hundreds of pinpricks of light. Every window seemed to be shining, despite the lateness of the hour, and a long low building she assumed was the Great Hall seemed to be practically on fire, the amount of light that was pouring from it. She pushed herself up on the edge of the boat to see it better, feeling Lisa doing the same on the other side. All around them students were gasping and sighing as they took it in.  
I didn’t even imagine. She had never seen the castle before, and her parents’ descriptions of it had never quite felt like anything real. Pictures didn’t even begin to capture the sensation she felt now, a swooping low in her stomach as she made out more and more of the towers and balustrades. It was from another time, in almost every way, and the weight of the history could be felt across the waves.  
The boats came in to dock and they followed Hagrid up the stairs leading to the castle. In no time at all they were right there in the Entrance Hall, stopping before an austere looking woman who surveyed them with a critical eye. Lily’s head was still reeling from the sight of the castle, and what she could glimpse of the interior looked even more impressive, a huge sweeping staircase just visible around a corner. She barely caught any of the woman’s speech, and then she was gone, leaving the students to wait until they were ready.  
She could hear people whispering, one boy muttering something about fighting trolls while the girl who had bumped into Lily on the platform was reciting all the spells she had read about, and how they might help her. Got to stay calm. She told herself. I already know where I’m going to end up, so there’s no point in obsessing about it.  
That was when a glowing silver figure erupted from the wall right beside her, talking about a poltergeist, and she couldn’t help but scream. By the time she had got herself under control the ghosts were already moving on, with the one who looked like a monk giving them a jolly wave, “Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” He chortled, and then the ghosts were gone, leaving them once more alone in the hall.  
Unconsciously, Lily moved closer to Lisa as the severe woman returned, and Sally shrank back towards them as well, stepping on Lily’s foot in the process. The clump became a line, and suddenly they were in the hall, and once more Lily felt her breath leaving her.  
Hundreds, no, thousands of candles hovered above the tables, which combined their light with the numerous lanterns that were blazing to make the whole Hall shimmer and glisten. Every surface that could sparkle was reflecting the light back at them, refracting patterns drawn across the students’ faces as they shuffled awkwardly to line up at the front, where a battered old hat had been placed on a stool.  
Oh Merlin. Lily felt her hands start to shake, This is it.  
The hat flexed and a rip on the brim opened, just like her father had told her it would.

Oh you may not think I'm pretty,  
But don't judge on what you see,  
I'll eat myself if you can find  
A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,  
Your top hats sleek and tall,  
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat  
And I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head  
The Sorting Hat can't see,  
So try me on and I will tell you  
Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,  
Where dwell the brave at heart,  
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry  
Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
Where they are just and loyal,  
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true  
And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,  
if you've a ready mind,  
Where those of wit and learning,  
Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin  
You'll make your real friends,  
Those cunning folks use any means  
To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid!  
And don't get in a flap!  
You're in safe hands (though I have none)  
For I'm a Thinking Cap!

The hall erupted into applause, and once more the woman stepped up. “When I call your name.” Now she was paying attention Lily realised she had a slight Scottish lilt, “You will come forth. I will place the Sorting Hat on your head, and you will be sorted into your houses.”  
The boy who had been going on about trolls muttered something else just behind her, but she ignored him, all her attention focusing on the hat as the first name was called.  
Bones, Brocklehurst, Brown, Bulstrode, oh Merlin it was all going too fast, Dunbar went to Gryffindor, followed by Finnegan, and suddenly the crowd was seeming a lot smaller as Goldstein stepped up and then.  
Oh no.  
“Moon, Lily.”  
She stepped forwards, feeling the eyes of the crowd on her, and perched nervously on the edge of the stool, clamping her hands together on her lap as the Sorting Hat descended over her face. She was glad it covered her eyes, she was certain she was about to start crying.  
“Well now.” A voice said in her ear. “This is interesting. Already got some ideas, haven’t you, but I’m afraid they’re not all correct.” There was a most disquieting feeling, like knowing that someone had gone poking through your clothes without telling you, except it was happening to her mind. “You’ve got some intelligence here, most definitely, bravery to stand up but the wisdom to know that it should be done when the numbers are in your favour. Loyalty, well there’s some, but not enough for Hufflepuff.” One down.  
“This isn’t simply a matter of counting down young lady,” The hat reproached, “I have to know that I will put you in the right place.” The uncomfortable sensation returned. “You’ve got bravery, but I’m afraid Gryffindor wouldn’t be the right place for you, and there’s ambition buried right here at the back. A lot of ambition. Proving yourself isn’t always about power you know.”  
She knew what was coming, and felt her heart sink down into her stomach. “The pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, or the pursuit of knowledge because it will help you further yourself? You have the knowledge either way, but the former is for Ravenclaw and the latter is for SLYTHERIN!” It bellowed the last word out to the hall and she felt her entire body slump as the hat was removed.  
She looked to the teachers’ table as she walked past and saw a man clad all in black applauding even as he looked mildly pained. She knew the feeling.  
As she sat down Parkinson, Pansy was being sent to Slytherin almost as fast as Malfoy had done before her. The Slytherin table was going mad with applause, but she didn’t join in, grimacing as she took the free place opposite Draco Malfoy, who gave her a sneering glare that told her wasn’t going to let house loyalty get in the way of recompense.  
What am I doing in this house?  
“Perks, Sally-Anne.”  
Her head jerked up, half of her hoping and half of her knowing that someone like Sally didn’t deserve Slytherin. It was amazing what you learn about someone if you spent seven hours on a train with them, and she knew that neither of her newly acquired friends would be following her. But she hoped, she hopped right up until the hat opened its brim and bellowed, “HUFFLEPUFF!”  
Sally near skipped over to her new house, who greeted her with a round of handshakes and back slaps as she sat. Lily clapped, and tried to smile, but they were already moving on to, wait a minute…  
Potter? Harry?  
She looked along with the rest of the hall as the hat squirmed on his head for nearly a full minute, then finally opened its brim again, the hall drawing a collective breath. She sneaked a look at Malfoy and saw an ugly look on his face already.  
“GRYFFINDOR!”  
The red and gold table exploded in applause, a pair of particularly loud voices catcalling, “We got Potter! We got Potter!”  
Lily watched him walk to his space, wondering why he looked almost as dazed as she had by the whole ordeal. Ravenclaw or Slytherin. She stared at the stupid hat as “Rivers, Oliver,” Became a Hufflepuff. There were so few students left, and she could see Lisa, looking as white as a sheet as she stood next to the boy with flaming red hair she had seen earlier on the train. He looked like he was on the verge of passing out, but Lily’s eyes were fixed on Lisa as finally, “Turpin, Lisa,” was called, and she stumbled over to the stool.  
Please.  
The way she had known how to intimidate the Malfoy boy, the way the two of them had jumped up together. But she was a half-blood, and the way she had spoken about Slytherin... It was no surprise when the hat deliberated for less than ten seconds before opening once more to announce another “RAVENCLAW!”  
Lily resigned herself to her lot as ‘Thomas, Dean,’ went into Gryffindor, followed quickly by ‘Weasley, Ronald,’ who couldn’t have looked more happy at his luck. Finally, ‘Zabini, Blaise,’ came over to join them at the Slytherin table and the hall faded into silence as Dumbledore stood up.  
***  
“Slytherins, follow me please, all Slytherins follow me.” Lily filed after the rest of her year, trying to keep one eye on the prefect as they entered the crush leaving the hall. It thinned out quickly as two of the houses went up and the other two went down the Great Staircase. Lily watched somewhat wistfully as the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws climbed up into the heights of the castle. The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins headed down one floor, then divided as the Hufflepuffs went one way and the Slytherins went another.  
Lily caught a glimpse of gold as Sally passed her by, but before she could say anything she was on more stairs leading down, and the lights started to fade. The dungeons were as dingy as she could have imagined, and it looked like there was even slime and moss nestled between the bricks. The air felt damp and cold and there was wind rushing through and chilling them periodically.  
“The Slytherin Common Room is just down here,” A voice announced from the front, “Try and keep up.”  
Lily didn’t think anyone had been left behind, but she hurried forwards a few steps anyway, practically touching the boy in front. Ahead she could see the bright white head of Draco Malfoy bobbing in and out of sight between his minions, and she felt a twinge in her stomach that had nothing to do with how little she’d eaten. How could I be in a house with him?  
They came to a stop in front of a plain stretch of wall and the prefect stepped up to it, intoning clearly, “Belladonna.”  
The wall slid open to reveal the common room, windows that seemed to be underwater and a pale green light casting a sickly glow over the jet black furniture. Charming.  
The students filed in and the prefects went to sand in front of the first years as the older students went straight to their dorms. “Welcome to Slytherin Common Room,” The girl said when the last of the older years had gone, “Girls dormitories are down this corridor and on the left fork, boys are on the right, straight to bed, lights out in five minutes.” The students went down the corridors and split into two groups when they reached the fork, allowing Lily her first proper look at the other girls in her year.  
Leading the pack there was a girl with a strangely squashed face. Her nose was so upturned it was practically vertical and her eyes were beady and cruel-looking. She was marching ahead of the others with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where they were going and what they were about. Behind her trailed a hulking girl, whose robes looked strained by the amount of muscle they were trying to hold back.  
Next to Lily there was a girl with dark hair who looked about as nervous as she felt, staring at her feet and not paying much attention to her surroundings. Lily wondered what the Sorting Hat had seen in her head to put her in Slytherin. A short way away from them the last member of their year, a short chubby girl with brown hair was walking along with her arms folded and her robes swaddled about her throat.  
They found their dormitory at the very end of the corridor, and when they went in Lily’s heart sank even further. There were five four poster beds arranged in a circle, and more windows looking out into filthy green water. There was a stove in the middle of the room, but it looked pathetically small and there was no wood for them to start a fire. It was bitterly cold, and the heavy feel to the air made Lily feel like she was trying to breathe in treacle.  
The haughty looking girl with the pug nose wasted no time striding to the bed closest to the small bathroom and sat down upon it, declaring, “I’ll take this one,” As she did so. The hulking girl went to the next one along and sat on it without a word, glaring at the other three as if daring them to say something.  
Feeling more than a little foolish, Lily went to the bed on the furthest side of the room from them and sat down gently, trying to ignore the stares the others were giving as her. The chubby girl ended up on the bed next to her, and the dark haired nervous girl was between them and the haughty girl.  
They sat in silence for about thirty seconds after the beds were chosen, but Lily knew it wouldn’t last.  
“I’m Pansy Parkinson,” The pug-faced girl announced, “My parents are both Pure-Bloods, and my family have been in Slytherin ever since the school was founded.”  
Lily didn’t know how to react to the baffling pronouncement, choosing instead to pull her pyjamas out of her case and drop her hangings down so she could change in a little privacy. “What about you?” She heard Parkinson ask someone else.  
“Millicent Bulstrode. Pure-Blood. Related to Violetta Bulstrode.” That had to be the huge girl; none of the others would have voices so deep.  
“And you?”  
“T-tracey Davis,” And there was the nervous girl, Lily sighed as she finished pulling on her nightshirt, it would be her turn soon enough. “Both my parents are magical I guess, but I don’t really know much about this place, or anyone else magical.”  
“I’m Daphne Greengrass.” That was from the next bed over, and Lily poked her head through the curtains in surprise. The Greengrass family were almost as old blood as the Malfoys. The girl looked nothing like she had expected. She had heard from her mother that all of the Greengrasses were stunningly beautiful, but Daphne was, to put it kindly, not.  
Pansy waved off the rest of Daphne’s description, clearly she knew about the Greengrasses. She turned on Lily, who sighed and shoved back on of her curtain, “Lily Moon, Pure-Blood.” It was so different from her conversation with Lisa and Sally. This felt more like an interrogation.  
Pansy’s eyes narrowed, “Didn’t the Moons go off and live with muggles?”  
Lily shrugged, “We live in a muggle village, but there’s a lot of other wizarding families nearby. It was either that or live out in the middle of nowhere like the Malfoys.” She realised that she was just repeating what her father had once claimed to Lucius at a dinner party and clamped her lips shut.  
It looked like Pansy was about to ask her more questions, but then the lights in the dungeon abruptly faded, and they were plunged into pitch blackness. Lily felt momentary panic rising in her, and burrowed beneath the covers to try and quell it. I guess they’re serious about lights out here.  
The other girls fumbled around for a few more minutes, getting changed, but then the dorm settled into silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The big gimmick of this story was always that the three girls were in different houses. It allows me to explore the three houses, and all of the unknown stories available.


	3. Learning the Basics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of lessons.

Chapter Three: Learning the Basics

The next morning, the lights came on as abruptly as they had been dimmed the night before. Lily pulled her quilt over her head and squeezed her eyes tighter, but the light still came through her blankets. Grimacing, she sat up and shoved the heavy curtains of her bed back, revealing that the rest of the dorm was having similar troubles rousing themselves. I don’t think Pansy is going to be first in the showers. She decided, rolling out of bed and grabbing her towel.  
She stumbled across to the bathroom, passing a cursing Pansy who had gotten tangled in her quilt. She slipped under the hot water and gasped as it eased some of the tension out of her shoulders. She relaxed into the spray and scrubbed her hair with soap, enjoying the shower while it lasted. When she heard the tramping of feet she ducked out and wrapped the towel around herself, slipping past Pansy and back to her bed.  
Her uniform had been laid out for her the night before, so once she had slipped back behind the curtains and dried herself she was able to get dressed straight away and flee to the Common Room.  
Unfortunately Draco Malfoy was already there, lounging across one of the sofas. He looked entirely comfortable there, as though he had been living in the Slytherin Common Room all his life. She ignored him and went to examine the noticeboard, which only had the timetables for the younger years on it. It looked like they had Potions first, with Professor Snape. She raised an eyebrow when she saw that they took the class with the Gryffindors. She could only imagine the chaos that would ensue. And after that was Charms, taught by Professor Flitwick. That class they had with the Hufflepuffs of all people.  
“Who are you anyway?” Came a voice from the sofa. She looked over to see Malfoy watching her intently.  
“Lily Moon, not that it’s any of your business.” She turned back to the noticeboard.  
“I’ve heard of the Moons, they went off to live with muggles.”  
Everyone keeps fixing on that. “What does that have to do with anything?” She asked.  
He didn’t answer, but she caught of glimpse of his expression as he returned to reading a textbook and knew what he thought of her and her family. She huffed and stalked over to an overcrowded bookshelf, passing Tracey Davis on her way over. Tracey went to sit on the sofa opposite Malfoy’s and they started talking about something Lily couldn’t hear.  
The titles of the books weren’t exactly encouraging, Fifty Instant Use Hexes; Why the Dark Wizards aren’t as Dark as they Seem; How to Win Friends and Influence People. It all suggested a house she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with. But the Sorting Hat had put her here, and how could the Sorting Hat be wrong? It had been doing its job for nearly a whole millennium.  
There were more people filing into the Common Room now, and she came away from the bookcase to stand close enough so that when a group of them headed out for the Great Hall she could follow them. It didn’t seem like the prefects were going to be showing them were to go, as they were lounging around on the same sofa and laughing at something Malfoy had said. He looked in his element, and despite being the youngest person there several people seemed to be hanging off his every word.  
Shaking her head, she followed her house mates to breakfast.  
***  
Lisa hadn’t had the best night’s sleep. She had been far too excited by finally being at Hogwarts. It was everything her mother had told her and more. The Ravenclaw riddle had puzzled her the night before, but hopefully she would start to learn her way around the more challenging aspects of it. And she just knew that she was going to be friends with the other girls in her dormitory. There was Mandy Brocklehurst, who had entertained them all the night before by recounting the tale of how she had once been put in charge of the school gerbil, and it had somehow ended up inside the headmaster’s personal desk.  
She walked down for breakfast with Morag, who had been very nervous, being muggle-born and terrified by little things like the moving staircases. As they walked down Lisa had to remember to point out the trick step when Morag nearly fell into it. The girl gave her a grateful smile and they walked on, spinning back round almost immediately when they heard someone yell behind them. One of the boys had fallen right into the trick step and plunged practically to the hip.  
Laughing, they helped him out and the three of them followed the prefects down to breakfast. Hufflepuff were filing up from the dungeons just as they entered, and behind them the Gryffindors were emerging from the grand staircase. The students all filed in together and sat at their tables, Lisa waving at Sally as they passed each other. Wondering about Lily, she looked over to the Slytherin table, which was only half full.  
Lily was one of the people, poking morosely at a bowl of porridge and ignoring her housemates. Lisa wondered what was wrong, but she didn’t want to go over and ask. She knew from her mother that it just wasn’t done like that at Hogwarts. She consulted the timetable she had made out the night before and checked to see when the Ravenclaws and Slytherins would have a lesson together.  
She would have Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs first, and then Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Gryffindors. Her first lesson with the Slytherins wouldn’t be until after lunch, when they would have History of Magic together. She resolved to try and sit next to Lily in that class and ask her what was wrong.  
She enjoyed breakfast, and piled her plate high with just about everything she could get her hands on. She knew she wouldn’t be able to eat so heavily very often, but it was the start of a new school and a new year, and it was time to do crazy things. Before she started eating she felt into the pocket which held her wand and wrapped her fingers briefly round the handle, enjoying the warm feeling it gave her. It was almost like the wand was reassuring her, letting her know that it was going to help her learn things.  
She tucked in, listening to the conversation as the older years filled the students in on what they were going to be learning. She thought that transfiguration sounded complicated, but worthwhile, but her attention was really caught by the fifth year who was discussing charms with one of his class mates. She overheard him talking about Cheering Charms and enchantments to make objects appear sentient for a short time.  
One of the prefect saw her looking and smiled, “You won’t be doing anything that complex for a while,” She said. “You start with floating things, unlocking charms. You always need to get the basics down…”  
“Before you can progress.” Lisa finished. It was the opening dedication from the Charms textbook. The only spell she had tried at home had been one to make a teacup dance, but it had been a little too complicated and the object of her charm had chosen to explode instead. When her father had finished picking the shards of china from his hair he had laughed heartily at it, but she had decided to put it on hold until she could be instructed properly.  
“So how much do you know about Hogwarts?” The prefect asked.  
“My mother came here, so I know about the classes, and the ghosts, and the way the place moves around a bit.”  
The smile turned conspiratorial, “There’s a lot more to this place than that. Even Dumbledore says about how he doesn’t know all this places secrets. You should go exploring sometime, it’s amazing what you can find.”  
Lisa absorbed all this and returned the smile, “I take it you’ve done some exploring yourself?”  
The prefect leaned back and looked smug, “There’s a portrait of an old bearded wizard near the top of the North Tower. If you can find it, tell him that the bowtruckles are raising havoc.”  
She nodded at the strange instruction, filing it away for further examination. She also checked her timetable to see if it would take her near the vicinity of the North Tower anytime soon. When she saw that only Astronomy happened up there she determined to go and find it herself.  
***  
Sally thought the Great Hall was the greatest thing she had ever seen, and that included seeing Manchester United play Chelsea at Old Trafford. The ceiling seemed to open right up to the heavens, which on her first morning in Hogwarts were a dazzling shade of blue with not a cloud in sight.  
She almost forgot to eat there was so much to look at and take in. She saw a ghost sitting two people over chatting with one of the older years, and no one was reacting to it. When she had read Hogwarts, a History there had been a lot she hadn’t been able to believe, but it turned out that it was all true, and there really was a ghost of a very fat friar sitting at the same table as her.  
Her first lesson was Transfiguration, which she was looking forward to, because all she could hear other people talking about was turning tables into puppies and then into water goblets, or something like that. It was enough to make her brain give up trying to absorb it all and simply sit back and watch.  
The other girls in her dormitory had seemed very friendly, and they had stayed up until nearly one o clock in the morning talking about themselves. Sally loved making friends, and she had the feeling that she and the other girls were going to be close. She wondered whether Lisa and Lily had been as lucky with their new house mates, and decided that she was going to ask as soon as she got the chance.  
She looked up just in time to see Lily leaving the Hall, her arms folding her robes tight around herself and her head ducked as she stepped past a couple of Slytherin boys who were entering. Sally frowned, it didn’t look like her train friend was very happy, and that wouldn’t do. They were in a school of magic, surely that was enough to make anyone excited?  
Just then a couple of Gryffindor boys came rushing into the hall huffing and puffing. One of them had bright red hair and the other a ruffled mop of black hair. They stood in the doorway for a moment, blushing as some people stared at their entrance, then hurried over to the Gryffindor table, where they engaged themselves in breakfast.  
Which reminded her...  
***  
Well, Thought Lily as she traipsed up from the dungeons, heading for Charms, That could have gone better.  
Professor Snape struck her as a thoroughly unlikeable person overall, picking on Harry Potter for no reason, and favouring Draco Malfoy, who had done nothing but snicker and pass notes to his cronies throughout the lesson. When he had read out her name in the register at the beginning he had paused for a second, and she had wondered whether he was going to say something to her, but then he moved on and came across Potter.  
The lesson hadn’t gone well after the fiasco with the register either. Pansy Parkinson had practically shoved Daphne out of the way in order to be her partner, and instead of focusing on the lesson had proceeded to bombard Lily with questions about her family, where she lived, what she thought of Slytherin, what she thought of Draco…  
When Lily had coolly informed the girl that she didn’t follow wizarding news, and hadn’t seen or interacted with Malfoy since she was about four, Pansy had seemed to take it as a personal insult, and had given her a lecture about how blood status was important, and now they were in Slytherin they had to start setting an example early, and how one of the prefects had been telling her that morning that…  
Lily had never realised she had such a gift for tuning people out, but she managed it quite brilliantly for the entire lesson, slowly trawling through her potions book to decipher what ingredients they might need to prepare for the next lesson in order to make the desired potion. She wasn’t entirely sure that the book was right in some cases, but she decided that rather than raise it with Professor Snape she would do the research herself when she got a chance to visit the library.  
They reached the Charms classroom just as Professor Flitwick was poking his head round the door, “Ah!” He exclaimed in a squeaky voice, “You’re right on time.” He pushed open the door and they trooped in, Lily making sure to wait until Pansy had sat down before taking a seat as far away as possible.  
“The Hufflepuffs should be here any, ah, here we go,” Flitwick let the Hufflepuffs in and went over to his desk, which was high enough to require him to stand on a small pile of books to look over it, and even then his long nose barely protruded over the top.  
Lily jumped as someone dropped a bag full of books on the desk next to her and sat, flipping blonde hair all over the place and beaming at her, “Hello again,” She said, “How are you?”  
“Hi Sally,” Lily tried to keep herself from smiling, but it was good to see the girl again, and clearly so happy. “I’m fine.”  
“Girls,” Flitwick chirped, “If you could be quiet.”  
They took the register and then got to work on their first lesson, which was learning the incantation and wand movement for unlocking things. They weren’t actually given anything to practice with, and so felt very foolish as they all waved their wands at nothing and tried to mumble the incantation quietly so no one else could hear them.  
All except Sally, who decided to wave her wand with vigour in the vague direction of her bag and incant, “Alohenda!”  
“Oh dear,” Said Flitwick wearily as the bag turned neon orange and rocketed to the ceiling, where it stuck. “You have to be careful my dear,” He said gently as he waved his wand and the bag returned to Sally’s desk, restored to its original navy. “If you don’t say the charm correctly anything might happen, and the wrist movement is less, ah, violent.” He flourished his wand and demonstrated with a perfect charm, causing the clasp of the bag to spring neatly open, “Now you try.”  
“Yes professor,” Sally seemed utterly unperturbed by her failure, and brandished her wand with a wide smile on her face, “Alom, sorry, Aloho, sorry, Alohamora.” She flicked her wand happily and Flitwick’s cloak dropped off. “Oh no!” Sally said into the sudden laughter, “Sorry professor.”  
“Quite all right my dear,” Flitwick accepted his cloak back from one of the Hufflepuff girls, “A little less violent with the flick I think.”  
Sally seemed determined to get it right, and flourished her wand again, “Alohamora!” She said again, not paying attention to where she flicked. The clasp of her bag sprung neatly open, as did the clasp on Lily’s, “Marvellous my dear, now let’s see everyone else try it.”  
By the end of the class Flitwick’s short but glorious cape loss was the most exciting thing to have happened. For some reason Sally couldn’t quite replicate her success, and no one else in the class succeeded at opening anything more substantial than an envelope. Lily had hoped she might be good at Charms, after everything her mother had said about it, it seemed like a fun subject, but she had actually succeeded in sticking something to the desk, which Flitwick had assured her was perfectly normal.  
All in all, as she left the Charms classroom, heading back to the dungeons to dump her bags before lunch, she was starting to work herself into a truly foul mood.  
Sally caught up with her as they got to the staircase, “Wasn’t that fun?” She was bouncing with energy, “Even though I did knock his cloak off.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged, “But I suppose they must be used to things like that happening around here by now, and I did at least make something open.”  
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Lily grunted.  
“Aren’t you?” Sally’s face shifted from happy to concerned so fast it would have made Lily giggle, if she hadn’t been feeling so terrible.  
“I’m just not settling in quite as well as you.” She said evasively.  
“Why aren’t you fitting in? Are the girls in your dormitory not nice? The girls in mine are very nice; we stayed up last night talking about everything you could think of. Like how Megan Jones once accidentally made a dog climb a tree and then it got stuck there and no one could explain how it had managed it?”  
“Hey Moon!” A shout came from ahead, “Nice to see you making friends with the special needs students!” Cackles signalled the departure of Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode, Tracey Davis in tow, who at least wasn’t laughing.  
If it was possible for a person to do so, Sally had actually managed to droop, “That wasn’t very nice,” She said, “Do you really have to share a dorm with them?”  
Lily nodded, but before she could say anything the other Hufflepuff girls caught up with them and formed a defensive wall around Sally, making it hard for Lily to talk to her. One of the Hufflepuff girls glared at her and she decided she wasn’t going to try, marching on ahead and leaving a very forlorn looking Sally wondering what had just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Big Three are in this story, but not in any sort of big way. There is absolutely no gumping to be done here. They will not turn out to have behind the curtain the whole time, they will not have actually been the ones to find the Philosopher's Stone, nothing like that.


	4. Flying Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls go exploring

** Chapter Four: Flying Lessons **

 

The days fell into a routine quickly enough. Every morning she rose when the lights flared on, hurrying past a cursing Pansy Parkinson to get first use of the showers, and then she headed up to breakfast. Most of her time in the Slytherin Common Room and dormitories seemed to be spent avoiding Pansy, who made no secret of her dislike for the quiet bookish girl she was forced to share a dormitory with.

Lessons were just as fun as she had imagined, and she quickly discovered an aptitude for Charms, as long as she wasn’t being distracted, when things tended to take a turn for the disastrous or explosive. She didn’t get to work with Sally very often anymore, since the Hufflepuff girls seemed determined to keep them apart. Instead she worked with Daphne Greengrass, who didn’t quite have the natural flair of other students.

Transfiguration lessons were as hard as everyone said, and no matter how much effort she put in she didn’t seem to be able to transfigure anything at all. It was like she had a block against changing things into other things, even when it was something small like a matchstick into a needle. Astronomy was one of her least favourite classes, taking place as it did at midnight on a Thursday at the top of tallest tower. It meant that she practically sleepwalked through her classes on Friday, so tired from having stayed up.

She managed to sit next to Lisa in History of Magic, mostly because no one actually noticed that they were sitting together, so bored by Professor Binns lecturing that most of the class sank into soporific stupor before they were even five minutes. She and Lisa talked about their classes and sometimes shared notes, but Lily stayed quiet when Lisa asked her how things were going in the Slytherin Common Room.

Because the truth was things weren’t going very well. Malfoy took every opportunity he could to make fun of her for having lived among muggles, and a lot of older years joined in with him as well as her own year mates. The entire house seemed to be divided into two groups, those who completely ignored her, and those who joined in the bullying. And there was Daphne, who would smile and talk to her, but only when there was no one around to see.

She would wake up to find that her ink had mysteriously spilled in her bag and all her homework was covered in blue smudges, or that her tie had somehow gotten lost in the Common Room somewhere, and so she was late for breakfast because she had been searching for it.

But she could deal with it, she decided, because it was just petty people doing petty things. Snape wouldn’t have stopped it anyway. He liked Draco more than any other student in the school, and everyone knew it. Whenever he was around Lily his mouth tightened and his eyes flashed with what looked like anger. She didn’t know what she could have done to annoy her head of house, but it seemed to make more sense to stay away from him.

The rest of her teachers were a little nicer, and Flitwick in particular lavished praise on her whenever she managed something, awarding her points almost every lesson. She also found she had a knack for Herbology, and Professor Sprout even gave her full marks on her first piece of homework. Herbology was another class they had with Ravenclaw, and the amount of chaos in the classroom meant that she was sometimes able to work with Lisa then as well, but more often than not her housemates pulled her away to discuss something interesting about one of their books.

She reached Friday feeling like her brain was about to start leaking out of her ears. She had never been expected to learn so much in such a short amount of time, and the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll. She had been up until past midnight the night before trying to finish the three foot essay for Potions that Snape had set them, and she hadn’t even started on researching the different types of fertiliser for Professor Sprout.

Most students were taking advantage of the weekend to sleep in so she had the whole table practically to herself. There were some fifth and seventh year students up as well but she was the only first year Slytherin awake. It was a similar story at the other tables, some older years already starting their work for OWLs or NEWTs, but other than that the hall was empty. She looked to the staff table and saw that most of the teachers seemed to be taking the day off as well.

Normally she only had a bowl of porridge or cereal in the mornings, but the smell of the bacon and sausages had grown more tempting as the week dragged on. At home she hadn’t been allowed to eat what she wanted, and she had never been allowed to have second helpings. Now she finally gave in, and piled her plate high with everything she had ever thought she might want for breakfast and started in.

***

Lisa wasn’t used to sleeping late, but after the week she had had she intended to use every second of her Saturday morning. When the first rays of light intruded on her she simply rolled over and pulled the covers up higher. When the first shuffling of the other girls waking up roused her again she held one of her pillows over her head until the noise was muffled enough to let her drift off again.

Finally, when Padma dragged the covers off her, she woke up.

“Breakfast!” The other girl announced, sounding far too cheerful. “We’re all going down together, so hurry up!”

Grumbling light-heartedly about pushy roommates she got dressed and followed them out and down the staircase. As was usual they started talking about what they had learned in Transfiguration the day before, when they had been asked to change their needles back into matches. Most Ravenclaw discussions got pretty deep into the meaning of magic, but Lisa had heard some of the older years having similar discussions and couldn’t even understand half of what they were talking about.

They were discussing right down to the table, at which point the Ravenclaw boys, who were already there, joined in as well, and soon they had dragged some second years into it. It wasn’t quite like the raucous Gryffindor table, where everything was shouted at full bellow, but some of the Ravenclaws could get pretty heated when it came to magic, and soon the whole house had broken off into debates.

Taking advantage of the discussion moving away from her little group Lisa piled her plate with food and looked over to the other house tables, trying to spot her friends. She had gotten on well with Lavender in their Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, and of course whenever they had Transfiguration Sally insisted on working with her, which was often an adventure in keeping your eyebrows un-transfigured.

She looked over to Slytherin and saw Lily, for once eating something more than porridge, and decided that she was going to try and corner the girl at some point. Every time they had had a lesson she had tried to talk to her but Lily had been distant. Lisa knew enough about Slytherin to guess that her year mates weren’t being very nice to her, and she wanted to make sure her friend was okay.

***

Finished with breakfaster, Lily went back to the common room and collected her books, deciding that she might as well try and get her essay finished early instead of putting them off. She decided that the library would be a better place to study than the common room, what with Malfoy once more entertaining people with tales of how he used to fly around the countryside whenever he wanted.

Finding the library was a job in itself, but when she had finally stopped accidentally going out into the courtyard for the dozenth time she finally made it, and set her books down on one of the tables to begin working. She liked the library; it had the proper sort of smell, slightly musty but with hints of some deeper scents, like the leather bound books or the enchantments to help people find what they were looking for.

She quickly settled into the work and had her Herbology essay done in less than an hour. She was just getting started on the Transfiguration work when something hit her in the back of the head. She looked round, seeing a piece of parchment on the desk next to her. She looked to see who had thrown it, intending to give them a piece of her mind, and saw Lisa and Sally sitting at another table, looking smug with a small pile of scrunched up pieces of parchment in between them. Lily looked down and saw that the floor around her was littered with other bits of parchment.

She stood and carried her books over to the other girls, “Can I help you?”

Lisa smiled, “We want to do some exploring, and thought you might like to come along?”

Lily raised an eyebrow, “Adventuring?”

“Hogwarts has got all sorts of secret passageways and hidden rooms,” Lisa reminded her, “And I’ve been told about one I have to try.”

“And you want me to come along?”

“Of course,” Lisa stood and got on one side of her as Sally stood to the other. They steered her towards the door, “It’s time we enjoyed the fact that we’re in a magical castle.”

***

It took them nearly an hour to find the North Tower, and then another twenty minutes to find the staircase that led them to the top instead of the bottom, despite the fact that the steps led upwards. Lily was still trying to get her head around that as they finally burst onto the top floor, panting a little from the effort climbing the stairs.

“Now,” Lisa said, “There should be a painting of an old bearded wizard around here somewhere.”

They split up trying to find it, poking their heads around the doors of empty classrooms and searching every nook and cranny. At one point Lily walked past a patch of corridor for the third time to see a door that she could swear hadn’t been there before, but it only led to a broom cupboard. Just when they had started to get bored with the search Sally yelled out, “I’ve found him!”

The other two joined her in front of a full length portrait of an elderly wizard, who was rubbing his ears, “Not so loud young miss,” He rasped, “Now what can I help you with?”

Lisa stepped forward with more confidence than she felt, “Well you see sir, it’s the bowtruckles.”

The wizard immediately became alert, and leaned forward as if they were engaging in a secret conference, “What about the bowtruckles?”

“They’re raising havoc sir.”

The effect was immediate; the wizard threw up his hands and rocked back in his chair. “The bowtruckles are raising havoc? Merlin save us the bowtruckles are upon us!” The portrait swung forwards and revealed a long slide that was in total blackness. Before any of the girls could do anything else the stone slab they were standing on tipped forward and catapulted them into the tunnel, screaming all the way.

The minute they were inside the tunnel Lily felt water rush over her, soaking her to the skin and weighing down her robes. Rather than stones slamming into her back, like she would have expected, the inside of the tunnel was smooth and slick, letting them gather speed as they thumped round the bends at speed.

Once Sally had gotten over her shock she started to cheer and whoop as they shot down through the castle, and Lily had to admit she had a point. She couldn’t help but join in, yelling her head off as the tunnel spiralled round. At the front Lisa joined in the catcalling, and they dropped faster and faster.

Lily was just beginning to worry what would happen when they reached the bottom of the tower when suddenly she realised that they were levelling out to a degree, still zooming along at a fair pace but no longer about to slam into a dead stop. The tunnel started to get lighter and a second later they were heading up instead of down, flying out of the end and sailing out over the lake.

Lily got a good glimpse of the boathouse and the far side of the lake before they hit the water, sinking a few feet before coming back to the surface spluttering and laughing. “Oh I am going to kill that prefect!” Lisa laughed, starting a clumsy dog paddle towards the boathouse, the other two following her.

“Wait, you got that from a prefect?” Lily couldn’t help but laugh, “No wonder it was a trap.”

When they arrived at the boathouse there was a small group of older years waiting for them, towels slung over their arms and big smiles on their faces. One of them Lisa recognised as the Ravenclaw prefect who had suggested the adventure. “Welcome to the club,” She said jovially as she helped Lisa onto the side and wrapped a towel around her shoulders, “Remember to tell some poor first year when you’re older.”

Sally huddled the blanket around herself, “You were told to do this as well?”

“When I was a first year I overheard one of the seventh years talking to his friend about it. I didn’t realise he was setting me up until he came to meet me with a towel.”

Lisa snorted a laugh and shook herself like a dog, soaking Lily once more. Lily took her glasses off and tried to dry the before they started steaming up, wondering quite how they’d managed to stay on during the wild ride. The older years bustled them up the long stairs back to the castle. “So have all of you gotten caught out by that portrait?” She asked; there seemed to be a lot of them.

“Oh yeah,” A boy in a Gryffindor scarf said, “It’s a very exclusive club you’ve just joined.”

That made Lily smile, but she also couldn’t see any other Slytherins there.

“They get caught out as well,” One of the Ravenclaws had read her expression, “They just don’t usually laugh about it afterwards.”

Lily frowned and hunched deeper into her towel. The older years looked uncomfortable, but Sally at least didn’t pick up on it. “That was so much fun,” She said, “I wanna do it again, does he let you ride it twice?”

The older years laughed, “Yeah, he’s a bit absent minded, so you can do it as often as you like,” The Gryffindor girl said, “But you never end up in the same place twice.”

“It changes every time?” Sally’s eyes glistened with excitement, “Now I _have_ to do it again!”

They were halfway up now, and Lily was finally starting to feel dry again. One of the older years examined them and pulled his wand out, “I think I can do a drying charm on you if you want to risk it?”

Lily looked at him apprehensively, but Sally nodded and he waved his wand. Steam rose from her clothes and her hair went curly. Once they had seen that it went well Lily and Lisa acquiesced as well, and soon they were all dry and warm as they came in to the Entrance Hall. They split up when they got to the Great Hall, which meant that Lily had to walk over to the Slytherin table alone. It was lunch time and most of the house was there, but she managed to slide on the end of a bench and keep a reasonable distance away.

She envied Lisa and Sally, who were surrounded by their house mates as they discussed the water slide. She looked to the teacher’s table and saw Professor Sprout looking at her and smiling. She smiled back and wondered whether any of the Professors had ever ridden the waterslide. As she returned to her meal she remembered the pile of homework she still had to do, and decided to skip dessert.

She rushed to get her books from the Common Room and headed back to the library, setting up in the same spot and plunging her nose deep into the books once more.

***

Lisa had decided that the best thing about being in Ravenclaw wasn’t that people were willing to talk about anything, it was that they had so many different ideas and opinions that the talks could end up being about literally anything. And when the entire house would join in a debate that they thought was interesting, just to see if they could pretend to know about the subject… well it wasn’t actually very surprising that what had a started as a discussion about the school’s hidden passageways had ended up as a discussion about what sort of underwear Dumbledore favoured.

Still trying to shake off the memory of the one older year boy who had suggested ‘commando’ she collected her bag and head to the library, spotting Lily the minute she walked through the door. She heaved her bag next to the Slytherin girl and say, pulling out her own pieces of parchment.

“I’m not going water-sliding again,” The girl muttered by way of greeting.

“I need help with Professor Sprout’s fertiliser questions. I’m useless at Herbology.”

They worked in silence for a while until someone else dumped their bag on Lily’s other side and they looked up to see Sally sitting down and pulling out a half-finished essay that was more crossed-out words than actual sentences. “I can’t understand this thing for Charms,” She said, “Lily, help?”

Trying to hide a smile of gratitude, Lily reached over to point out the correct chapters.


	5. Vs Gryffindor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first flying lesson

** Chapter Five: Vs Gryffindor **

 

The days faded together, and soon Lily had not only mastered the art of changing a piece of wood into a piece of metal, but also changing it back again, which was apparently much harder. She could make things float at will and she had managed to achieve a good enough mark at Potions that Snape had begrudgingly awarded her one point to Slytherin. She thought it was manifestly unfair, given that Malfoy had received ten points for turning in a potion that had the consistency of treacle, but then Harry Potter had lost five points for answering a question wrong so she wasn’t about to complain.

She told Lisa and Sally about it, and they were appropriately outraged, which made her feel better about the whole ordeal, and she spent most of the next History of Magic class sitting at the back of the class with Lisa making up rude names to call Snape (if they ever happened to be in possession of an Invisibility Cloak and a lot more courage than they possessed.)

The next two weeks flew off the calendar and she barely even realised that no one in her own house was speaking to her, and that she had in fact begun receiving nasty looks from Pansy and Millicent, as well as inspiring more than a few angry whispers whenever she entered the Common Room. Tracey had been sucked into their little gang as well, and now the three of them trailed around after Malfoy, gleefully absorbing everything he put forth about the unfairness of first years not being allowed brooms.

Then a notice got put up on the board that reminded her of one of her chief dislikes about being at Hogwarts. They were to start having flying lessons, which would be undertaken with the Gryffindors.

 _I hate flying._ Was her only thought as she read the note, _And now I’m going to have to do it in front of Malfoy and his cronies_ and _all of Gryffindor?_

She approached the fateful day with a growing sense of dread, and nothing Lisa or Sally could say would shake her out of it. They still sat together after dinner and did their homework in the library, but she had stopped communicating with them beyond pointing out errors in their work. The other two girls, who had gotten used to the more lively Lily who had begun to emerge, were shocked at her change of behaviour.

“We’ve got to find some way to snap her out of it.” Lisa said to Sally as they had a whispered conference in Transfiguration. Having such a conversation in a lesson McGonagall taught was tantamount to just going directly to a teacher and asking for detention, but they didn’t have many other opportunities.

“It took a water-slide down the entire length of the castle last time,” Sally pointed out, “I don’t think we can do much better.”

Lisa jabbed her wand at the teacup she was supposed to be transfiguring, and smiled when it slowly changed into a goblet, albeit one with a porcelain handle. “Maybe if we just went flying with her, show her that she can do it and it’s not so bad, then when she has to do it with the rest of the class she won’t be so nervous.”

“Lily doesn’t get nervous,” Sally scoffed, her own teacup slowly turning into a pint glass.

“Of course she does,” Lisa corrected Sally’s wildly jabbing hand and then cast an absent charm to return her own goblet to its original state. “Haven’t you noticed that she’s normally really smart, but then she’ll come in one day and make a really bad mistake at something?”

Sally’s jab this time turned the teacup into a glass bottle, “Like when she accidentally did _Alohamra_ instead of _Alohamora_?”

Lisa nodded, “Exactly like that. She told me later that Pansy had been threatening to do something to her during that class.”

“Couldn’t we just hex Pansy?” Sally’s wand seemed to like the idea at least, and sent a wild burst of sparks that turned Lisa’s hat yellow.

Lisa gingerly corrected Sally’s aim, “Even if we knew any hexes,” She whispered, aware that McGonagall was watching them closely, “We’d all get in trouble for that, because you just know Pansy would tell on us.”

“So how do we get brooms for flying? First years aren’t allowed.”

Lisa smiled mischievously, “Just leave that to me.”

***

The three girls met in the Entrance Hall, all wearing robes with the hoods up. Lily glared at her friends, “So what was so important that I had to come up here in the middle of the night? I lose enough sleep with Astronomy.”

“You lose enough sleep worrying about flying,” Lisa retorted, “We’re going to make it easier for you.”

“Oh really? How’s that?”

Sally smiled, “We’re going to go flying tonight, that’s how!” Lisa hushed her, looked worriedly around as though Snape were likely to burst right out from behind the tapestry. It did look a little too black and shifty for her liking.

“Right.” Lily looked sceptical, “Past the locked doors, down to where the brooms are stored, and back again without being spotted or caught. And how do you plan on achieving this?”

Lisa’s answer was a smile that gave Lily shivers. It would have looked good on any Slytherin. She held up her wrist and pointed to her watch, which read less than a minute to twelve. “Any second now.”

At the very stroke of midnight there was an ungodly cackling and something blasted through the doors to the Entrance Hall, slamming them open and keeping them held there as Lisa and Sally grabbed Lily by the arms and forced her out of the doors and down the steps. Behind them there was an enraged roar of, “PEEVES!” That Lily recognised as Filch, and then they were racing down the lawn, heading for the broom sheds.

“How did you convince Peeves to do that?” Lily asked in amazement. The Poltergeist wasn’t exactly known for following instruction, especially from students.

“I’ve been talking to him for the last few weeks, convinced him it would be a great idea to burst the doors open one night, then when he wanted to do it right away I told him to wait until midnight so it would have the most effect.”

“And how do we get back in?”

“Well I then told him that the best thing to do would be to wait an hour until everyone’s just gone back to bed, then do it again. As long as we’re outside the doors at one o clock he’ll do the rest, and he thinks it was all his idea of course.”

Lily gaped at her in amazement for a solid half minute, then shut her mouth and shook her head, “You would have made one fine Slytherin.”

“I like to think it was applied wisdom,” Lisa sniffed, clearly a little affronted by the Slytherin comment.

They had reached the broom sheds, and Sally scrambled down onto her stomach and started to feel around underneath them. “What are you doing?” Lily asked.

“I needed to know how to get past the locks and enchantments,” Sally grunted, tugging at something, “So I asked one of the older years who the biggest pranksters in the school were, and he told me to talk to the Weasley twins. They were more than happy to tell me how to get past the… ah, there we go!”

The door sprang open, revealing the battered old brooms that the school used to teach their pupils. Sally gasped as she saw them, “That cannot be safe,” She giggled under her breath.

Lisa strode in and grabbed one, throwing it out to Lily, who caught it easily. Lisa took two more and walked out, handing one to Sally, “Okay, let’s go flying,” She said, swinging one leg over her broom.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Lily asked, watching in horror as Lisa settled herself and gripped the handle tightly.

“I’ve read about it, it should be fine.”

Having said this, Lisa pushed off hard from the ground, and promptly slid off the back of the broom, which carried on without her for about forty feet before turning and returning, like a puppy that had realised its master wasn’t rushing after it. As Lisa lay dazed on the grass Sally swung her own leg over, “My turn,” She announced, pushing off as well.

Her broom was a little more lethargic, taking her about two feet off the ground, it hovered there, responding sluggishly as she tried to lean into a turn, eventually giving up and swinging herself off to land safely on the ground. Lily had watched it all in stunned silence; it was so different to what she had been told about Hogwarts. Her own parents had spoken of the long nights of revision, of working hard to uphold the house tradition and get enough points to win the cup. They had never told her about sneaking out in the middle of the night to fly brooms.

“Your turn,” Sally told her, face flushed with excitement.

Lily eyed her broom warily, then sat on it slowly and pushed lightly on the ground. Wind rushed into her face and she screwed her eyes tight until a second later she realised that she wasn’t absolutely terrified. In fact, flying felt pretty damn good once she was actually in the air. She opened her eyes and looked down to see that she was only about six feet in the air, but it felt like a great gulf as she coaxed her broom to the right and gazed down at her friends.

Lisa mounted her broom again, face set with determination, and pushed off from the ground, soaring up to join Lily, “Not hard at all,” She said, having to apply firm pressure to keep her broom from taking off without her. “This isn’t so bad.”

Sally came up to join them, her broom taking about twice the time, but eventually the three girls were all floating above the grass and staring at each other, smiles wide and eyes alight with what they were doing. “I’ve got an idea,” Lisa declared, suddenly turning her broom and heading off across the courtyard.

When Lily looked back on the night she would realise that they had probably only be going about five miles an hour, barely a brisk walk, but doing that on a broomstick, chasing a friend round and round a courtyard while floating six feet off the floor was one of the most exciting things she had ever done. Sally couldn’t keep up with them, but she amused herself by seeing just how slowly she could loop the loop, laughing as her robes draped over her head.

After what felt like no time at all Lisa pulled in to land, “We have to get back,” She told them, “Peeves is going to be doing a repeat trick in a moment.”

They returned the brooms and Sally did something else that locked the shed again, then they hurried back to the front of the castle as one o’ clock ticked closer. They crouched next to a stone gargoyle and Lisa whispered instructions to them, “When the doors open the teachers and Filch are going to rush in quickly, so we’ll have to get to the staircase before anyone arrives.”

“We’ll have to hide, wait until the teachers go past us, then go to our dorms.” Lily pointed out.

Lisa waved a hand, “That’s easy enough, have you ever seen how many hiding places there are in this place?”

At that moment they heard a cackling that signalled the arrival of the poltergeist. Ten seconds later there was another great crash as he blew the doors open. The girls sprinted through the doors and skidded across the Entrance Hall, vaulting the short flight of stairs and splitting as Lisa headed up and the others headed down. Lisa waved briefly, and disappeared behind a tapestry.

Lily and Sally took the stairs three at a time, risking a broken ankle until they reached the bottom, where they heard the sounds of people running. Lily grabbed Sally and dragged her under the stairs, where the shadows would hide them, and they watched as Sprout and Snape rushed past, both in their night clothes. Sally started to giggle and Lily clamped a hand over her mouth. They waited until they heard Snape bellowing at Peeves and Sprout yelling at Snape to stop shouting before he woke the students.

“Time to go,” Lily whispered, pulling Sally up again and heading towards her own corridor.

“Don’t be sad,” Sally told her as they separated, “Remember, we’re your friends, you’re not allowed to be sad.”

Lily waved for her to hurry up, but she couldn’t stop the huge smile spreading across her face as she rushed to her own dorm, where thankfully the other girls were dead to the world, letting her sneak in unnoticed.

As she huddled under the bedding and surreptitiously dumped her cloak next to her be, she realised that she had barely stopped smiling since she first got on the broom. Even when she had been hiding from Snape it had been exciting. _That was so much fun._ She huddled down and tried to warm her sheets up; _I never knew sneaking around the castle could be so exciting._

Although she wouldn’t have admitted it, even to herself, she wanted to do it again.

***

When she stepped over to the broom the next day all she had to do was recall how it had felt to soar through the air to make the broom shoot straight into her hand when she said, “Up!” She was one of the few who managed it, and she noticed that Harry Potter was one of them. Of course, Draco Malfoy was one of the others, which turned her happy feeling to more of a frown.

Madame Hooch asked her if she had learned to hold a broom by sweeping floors as she adjusted Lily’s grip, but it washed off her, she was going to be in the air any second! She prepared herself for the sensation again, already feeling the wind rushing through her hair when she would…

Where was he going?

One of the Gryffindors had taken off early, rising straight up like a cork out of bottle, a speed she imagined would make her faint, especially since he was doing nothing but climb. Sure enough, he hit sixty feet and fell, sliding off the back of the broom and tumbling to the ground with a horrifying _crack!_

Lily hung back as the others crowded around his body, and when Madame Hooch helped him out she could see that his face was nearly green and his hand looked like it was sitting at the wrong angle. She felt bile rise in her stomach and turned away, gripping the end of her broom tightly. _Poor boy,_ She thought sympathetically, watching him led away as behind her someone started talking.

 _Oh wait a minute._ She turned back to see Malfoy scoffing as he held up a glass orb she recognised as a Remembrall. She started forwards, intending to give him a piece of her mind, but Harry got there first, “Give that here Malfoy.” He said it quietly, but the effect was instantaneous. Even Lily was staring at him as he and Malfoy argued, and she was one of the many who gasped as they took off into the skies.

Thirty seconds later it was all over and Harry Potter was standing in front of them clutching the ball in his hands. Lily hadn’t even been able to see it as it fell, and she had to work to keep her mouth from dropping open. The Gryffindors raced forwards to congratulate him as the Slytherins hung back and watched the whole display contemptuously. She found herself somewhere in the middle, not wanting to walk any closer to a group which included Pansy Parkinson.

Fortunately, she was spared when McGonagall marched up and led Potter away, and in the ensuing confusion the class reshuffled where they were standing. Lily found herself next to a girl who kept muttering about irresponsibility and how they were certainly going to lose points for it. Lily ignored her, she thought it had been the most incredible thing she’d ever seen, and she thought that was worth any amount of points.

***

Later that night she recounted the story to Lisa and Sally, who had already heard it from others, but listened avidly to her retelling of it.

“It was incredible, Malfoy threw that thing, and it was like it disappeared it was going so fast, but he just leaned over his broom and went diving to the ground. He caught it!” She lowered her voice immediately, making sure that Madame Pince wasn’t around. “I couldn’t believe it, but he sort of stumbled off his broom and he had it in his hands!”

Sally and Lisa looked suitably impressed, and as they returned to their work Lisa asked, “But did you actually get to fly?”

Lily shook her head, “By the time Madame Hooch got back and realised what had happened she said that we weren’t going to be flying until next lesson.”

“Man,” Sally said, scrawling something on her parchment without really looking at it, “Gryffindors have all the fun.”

“And sneaking out to ride broomsticks at midnight isn’t fun?” Lisa asked, mock indignant.

“Well, I heard that the Weasley’s got detention today,” Sally leaned in to tell her own story, “They were caught trying to sneak into the prefects’ bathroom, and they had a potion they were going to put into the bathwater in there.”

The night drew on as Sally recounted the tale of the skin-colour-changing potion and they finished the essays they had somehow managed to gather, and when Lily bid them goodbye to go back to her dorm, she felt for the first time like Hogwarts was home.


	6. Getting Even

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse for Lily

** Chapter Six: Getting Even **

 

A few weeks later Lily woke up and rolled out of bed like she always did, and was immediately doused in freezing cold water. She gasped and hunched over, shivering and hugging herself as she heard mocking laughter from Pansy’s bed. “Looks like you got the first shower again,” She crowed.

Lily could barely think she was so cold, but when she tried to escape to the bathroom Pansy blocked the way, “I’ve been thinking,” She said, shoving Lily back a few steps, “Slytherin has a certain reputation it needs to maintain, and every one of us needs to do her part.”

Millicent was watching the scene with her beady eyes, and out of the corner of her eye Lily could see Tracey watching as well. “You need to stop hanging around with those girls in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”

“And what if I don’t want to?”

“Well then we’ll have to make you.”

Lily shoved past Pansy and rushed into one of the shower cubicles, locking the door behind her. She stood under the water, feeling tears coursing down her cheeks, and wished again that she could have been in Ravenclaw. When she came back out the others were acting as though it hadn’t happened, but she caught Daphne looking at her with something like pity, which only made her feel worse. She went for breakfast even earlier that morning, the Great Hall almost entirely empty apart from some teachers who were grading essays.

She forced herself through a bowl of porridge and hung around until she saw Pansy and the other girls entering, hurrying past them and racing back to the dorm, gathering up her things for school and shoving them into her bag.

***

“You should by now have finished brewing you potions, so collect them into a vial and bring that vial to me.”

Lily didn’t think her potion was even close to her best effort, but she at least thought she would escape a failing grade Hopefully she wouldn’t be given too much extra homework because of it, but from the look on Snape’s face as he collected Longbottom’s she thought that was unlikely. She brought her vial down to the front, but before she could get there she tripped over and fell face first onto the potions floor, her glasses falling off and breaking as well.

As she looked up she saw the shock of blonde hair that was Draco Malfoy, who wasn’t quite quick enough bringing his leg back under the desk. She fumbled for her glasses and held them against her nose, intending to go and get another vial, but Pansy was at her workstation, and the cauldron was empty.

“Moon,” Came the ominous voice of the potion’s master, “Since your clumsiness has rendered you unable to provide a potions sample, you will return to the dungeons after school and brew it properly then.”

“Yes sir,” She mumbled, snatching up her things and fleeing the room.

***

She didn’t go to the library to study that day, choosing instead to sit in a quiet corner of the Common Room to do her work. She knew that she needed to revise her knowledge of the potion again anyway, before she did it for Snape, but she also hadn’t done enough work on her Charms homework for the week. She didn’t want Flitwick to be disappointed in her, so she spent most of lunch practicing the wand movement she would need for the colour change charm.

In Charms she deliberately chose a seat at the far end of the classroom, so by the time Sally had entered they weren’t able to sit together. This also had the effect of leaving her alone for most of the lesson, but she was fine with that, focusing on trying to change the colour of the quill she had been given. No matter how much she concentrated she couldn’t seem to get it to alter, and even when Flitwick showed her the correct way to jab her wand it still didn’t change the colour.

Next to her Daphne had succeeded in changing her quill from blue to a slightly paler blue, and across from them one of the Hufflepuff girls had managed to turn the rose she had been given from red to yellow, which Flitwick was quick to award points for. Grimacing to herself, Lily turned back to her quill and tried again. She jabbed a little too hard and the quill transfigured itself into a needle, and Flitwick came over again, giving her a concerned look as he changed the needle back.

“Are you okay my dear?” He asked quietly, “Normally your charm work is much more refined.”

“I’m fine sir,” She told him, “Just a little tired.”

“Well, try it again,” He told her kindly, and she tried to focus properly, waving her wand and incanting.

“Multicorfours,” She said, waving at the quill and smiling when it faded softly from green to blue.

“You see,” Flitwick squeaked happily, “When you concentrate, you can do it. Five points to Slytherin.” He gave her a smile and trotted off to help someone else.

Lily spent the rest of the lesson trying to change it into other colours and pointedly ignoring Pansy, who was whispering something to Millicent a few seats over. She made it right up until the lesson, and also managed to change her quill to red and then back to green when suddenly she realised that across the classroom, Malfoy was pointing his wand at her while Flitwick was talking to Sally. Before she could do anything his wand flashed and something hit her in the shoulder.

Immediately Pansy burst out laughing, and the entire class was looking at her. After a shocked second most of them started to giggle as well, except for Flitwick and Sally, who were looking at her in something close to horror. She ran her hands over her face, but she couldn’t feel anything wrong, and her glasses were still on and in place.

“Obviously the charm must have backfired,” Flitwick said as he bustled over and drew his wand, pointing it at her, “It will only take a minute to correct the problems.”

“Problems?” She said, her voice rising hysterically, “What’s gone wrong?”

“Oh nothing dear,” Flitwick was finding it hard to speak over the laughter of the class, “Everyone, you are dismissed,” He told them, waving his hand, “It’s nothing serious,” He said, “This can happen sometimes with colour changing charms.”

She pulled a lock of her hair forward and had to suppress a shriek as she realised it had turned bright green. Her shock turned immediately to anger as she realised what Malfoy had done, but she said nothing to Flitwick as she held still and waited for him to perform the counter charm. Now she knew what Pansy must have been talking about earlier, and more than anything it annoyed her that they had chosen to embarrass her in Flitwick’s class. Now her favourite teacher thought that she had managed to make a very simple spell go so wrong.

“Thank you sir,” She said when Flitwick had finished, picking up her bag and leaving the room, her shoulders set.

She practically ran over Sally, who was waiting outside, “Are you okay? You looked really freaky with green hair.”

Lily bit back an angry retort and hurried to Defence Against the Dark Arts, trying to ignore Sally, who was rushing along next to her, “Did your spell really backfire? Because you’re normally really god at charms but sometimes things just go wrong. I know that sometimes I can do some spells, but then when it would be most embarrassing sometimes they just go wrong. I think it might be my wand. Can a wand feel like it’s laughing? Because mine sometimes does.”

“I didn’t do it.” Lily grunted.

“Well then who did?”

“I didn’t see.” She lied.

“Do you think they did it deliberately? Why would someone do something like that to you?”

Lily stopped and spun on one heel, “Look, Sally. You’re a Gryffindor, I’m a Slytherin, we don’t get along.”

“Yes we do, we’re friends.”

“No, I mean our houses. Slytherins make friends with Slytherins, HUfflepuffs make friends with Hufflepuffs.”

“But I’m also friends with Lisa, and she’s in Ravenclaww,” Sally pointed out, with the infallible logic of someone who knows nothing about traditions.

Lily threw her hands up in frustration, “It’s just different.” She said, and stalked off.

***

Defence wasn’t much fun, not with the Slytherins still giggling whenever they looked at her and keeping her from sitting near the Ravenclaws. She rode it out in silence, focusing on reading about dragons and the correct ways of using their blood to create antidotes. She ignored it when someone threw a piece of paper at her head, and she ignored it when someone slipped a piece of parchment in front of her that had a crude drawing of her with green hair on it. When the bell signalled the end of the lesson she grabbed her stuff and was the first out of the door.

She skipped lunch again and spent the time revising the potions work until she was confident that she could create a passable effort for Snape. She hurried out of the Common Room before anyone could talk to her and went to History of Magic, choosing a seat on the far side of the room so no one would bother her. The lesson was one of Binn’s most boring to date, an hour of simply listing the wizarding genealogies, but then she wasn’t paying attention, choosing instead to draft elaborate revenge schemes on a spare bit of parchment.

 _Not that I’d ever do any of this._ She thought as she idly considered learning the bat bogey hex, _But it’s fun to speculate._

The bell ended and she ignored Lisa asking how she was and practically ran to Transfiguration. _I’ve got to do something,_ She thought as she spread her books out, _I can’t just keep running away from them, I’m in a dorm with Pansy after all._

Transfiguration was such a complex subject that half of their lessons were spent preparing to do spells rather than actually doing them. Today they were looking at the theory of _Aparecium,_ making invisible things reveal themselves. As with all types of transfiguration, it was much easier to start on inanimate objects before working up to living things.  As such they would be starting by revealing words written on a piece of parchment that McGonagall had provided.

Reading the theory, Lily thought that it sounded much easier than the full transformations they had started with, but all the transfiguration spells came with large sections of text explaining the philosophy of the spell, and how the intention behind it needed to be understood. Most of the homework that McGonagall gave them was centred on the theory, making sure that they understood what they were doing before they did it.

Lily was finding that she didn’t like transfiguration very much. McGonagall never seemed satisfied no matter how well she did, and doing the class with the Gryffindors didn’t help. Hermione Granger got everything before everyone else, and so she always got all the praise. Everyone else was second best in McGonagall’s eyes. Irritated, she glared at Hermione, who had her nose buried in the book, oblivious to the world around her.

By the end of the lesson no one had thrown anything at her, or passed her any notes or tried to blast her with any spells. She traipsed back to the Common Room in silence, knowing she had to get to Snape’s dungeon to do her potion again. She collected her bag of potions ingredients and went back out, immediately tripping again and falling flat on her face. She rolled over to see Malfoy standing above her and sneering down at her. “Haven’t got that ravenclaw around to back you up anymore,” He told her.

“I knew you were a weasel Malfoy,” She snapped at him, “But I didn’t realise you were a bully as well.” She snatched her bag and rushed off; knowing that being late to Snape would be tantamount to outright asking for detention.

***

“Moon.” She shut the door quietly behind herself and walked to the front desk, where he already had a cauldron bubbling away nicely. “You will work at that cauldron. You have one hour to complete the potion, and then you will leave.”

“Yes sir.” She said quietly, and got to work.

It wasn’t anywhere as bad as she had feared. Snape was grading papers and didn’t talk to her for the full hour until she had finished, when he looked up and muttered, “Bring me the vial, try not to drop it.”

She collected her potion and brought it to the front, where he collected it and stored it in a small case, “That will be all Moon.”

She left for dinner, wondering why he had been so uncommunicative. She had heard stories from other people who had been forced to have extra classes with him about how he had spent the whole time belittling them, but for some reason he had left her alone.

At dinner she sat next to Daphne, who mumbled something about not wanting to be near Pansy. She accepted the company, glad that at least someone wasn’t actively out to get her. They didn’t talk much, but Daphne said that she didn’t think Malfoy turning her hair green had been funny. “All sorts of things can go wrong when you don’t use spells right,” She said, “He shouldn’t have done it, it could have been dangerous.”

Lily nodded and went back to eating her stew, wondering why there was a clump of older year Gryffindors gathered around Harry Potter. She saw that Malfoy was looking mulish, and wondered whether it had anything to do with the incident in the flying lesson. It was obvious that Potter hadn’t been expelled, and when she had seen him in Transfiguration he had been positively beaming about something. She hoped it was something that would really annoy the rest of Slytherin; maybe then they’d get back to going after him instead of her.

Finished with dinner, she took her bag to the library and sat down to work. She was aware that Lisa came in ten minutes later, but the Ravenclaw saw at a table across the room, and when Sally came in she joined Lisa there. _Well that lasted me all of a month._ Lily thought morosely as she scratched something about the restorative properties of the lima bean when it was brewed with music in the background. She speculated on what sort of music would be best for curing afflictions of the mind, and then rounded out her essay with a simple conclusion.

Returning to the dorm she pulled back her covers to find that someone had put large clumps of dirt into her bed. “Oh no,” Pansy said, “Looks like there’s a whole lot of mud all around you.”

She got to work scraping it out, wondering whether they were ever going to have the brazier in the middle of the room lit, and changed, trying to ignore Pansy and Millicent hissing to each other. Whatever they were going to cook up for tomorrow, she would deal with it like she had everything else, calmly and quietly and with the minimum of fuss.

***

It started at about five in the morning, when a bucket of ice water splashed onto her bed and soaked her to the skin. She fumbled blindly for her glasses but couldn’t find them, and as she staggered out of bed she stepped on something sharp and hissed a curse, trying to resist the urge to hop until she knew that the rest of the floor was safe. She fell back onto her be, wincing at the unpleasant squishing noise it made as she sat, and brought her foot up to run her hand over it.

She didn’t think there was anything stuck into her foot, but without her glasses she couldn’t be sure, and it was too dark to try and find her trunk, if it was even still at the bottom of her bed. She couldn’t very well go back to sleep in her soaking bed, but she didn’t want to risk the floor either. She decided that a compromise would be her best option, and slid slowly down until she was on her hands and knees on the floor, feeling her way blindly towards the bathroom.

“Now!” She heard Pansy yell, and the lights flared on, leaving her squinting and covering her face as a chorus of laughter reached her ears. She looked up and saw a vague mass of shapes above her, most of which seemed to be pointing. She was aware of how ridiculous she probably looked, and bowed her head in embarrassment.

“Now isn’t that more appropriate for a badger?” Pansy was saying, “Crawling around half blind.” Legs appeared in front of Lily, and something dropped to the floor, before she could try and focus on it Pansy stepped down and she heard glass crack. “We saw you talking to one of the Hufflepuffs after Charms.” She explained, crouching down and forcing Lily’s head up, “Didn’t I say we’d make you change your mind?”

Lily didn’t say anything, realising in horror that there were tears coursing down her cheeks. The laughter was more subdued now, but Pansy’s face looked hard and cruel, even out of focus as it was. “Now are you going to make friends in your own house?” She asked.

 _Calm, quiet, no fuss,_ She thought blankly, but that was hopeless, and she dropped her chin in a nod. “Good girl.” Pansy said, standing back up, “See you at breakfast.” She swept out of the dorms, the others following her.

 _I will not cry._ Lily told herself, collecting the shattered remains of her glasses and hunching slowly into a ball on the floor, ignoring the concerned questions from Daphne, who seemed to be the only one left in the dorm. _I will not cry._ She hadn’t cried since she was seven and Theodore Nott had taken her favourite Chocolate Frog Card. _I. Will. Not…_

She couldn’t help it, her shoulders shook and she sobbed silently into her hands.


	7. Helping Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lisa and Sally help Lily out.

** Chapter Seven: Helping Hands **

 

“I’m concerned about one of your students Severus.” Flitwick was talking quietly, and Snape even more so, but Lisa had good ears, and she had chosen the perfect hiding place. She was barely a foot away from the teachers.

“I hardly think the wellbeing of my students is any of your concern Filius.” Snape drawled.

The Charms teacher drew himself to his full height, which didn’t look very imposing, but at least it was an effort. “It is my concern when the bullying starts to affect my lessons.”

“Bullying of one of my students?” Snape sounded like he was genuinely shocked. “I am aware that Mr Potter has some sort of vendetta against Draco, but I would have thought you’d be on Potter’s side.”

“Lily Moon, Severus,” _I knew it._ Lisa thought, trying to lean forward without exposing herself.

“I was not aware of any bullying going on.”

“She turned up in my Charms class today wearing different glasses. She claims her other pair broke…”

“Students are clumsy.”

“But Ms Parkinson felt it appropriate to laugh and exchange some whispers with her friends at the exact same time I mentioned it.”

“A baseless accusation, and you know it.”

“Oh I have a lot more than that. Students seem to think that when they throw notes in my class they just get lost, but I collect them all after the lesson when clearing up, and some of them are most illuminating, warning her not to say anything about her glasses. And you remember I told you about the incident with the colour-changing charm?”

“A spell backfiring.” He waved a hand dismissively, “Filius, if you can bring me nothing more than petty student issues.”

Lisa had never seen Filius look angry, but now he did, “Severus, whether you like it or not you have a duty of care to the students in your house. All of them, not just the old family names.”

“What are you proposing I do? Barge into the first year girls’ dorm and start demanding to know what’s going on? I see that going very well.”

“I expect you to keep a look out for your students.” Flitwick jabbed his finger at Severus, “I’ve been speaking to Minerva and Pomona as well, and they’ve noticed problems, Pomona especially agrees with my concerns. She still doesn’t know exactly how that dragon dung could have fallen on Lily from above, given that it’s kept on the floor.”

Severus folded his arms and seemed to tuck his head inside his robes, “If Lily is being bullied, then why doesn’t she come forwards?”

“I wouldn’t think to instruct a Slytherin about how pride can make you do foolish things. You’ve spent so long making the students terrified of you you’ve forgotten what your job as a teacher is.”

“I have far more important student concerns than one little first year. If you are so concerned Filius, then why haven’t you done anything about it?”

That seemed to stump Flitwick, and Snape took the opportunity to escape. Lisa waited behind the tapestry she had chosen until Flitwick had gone on as well, and then slowly slipped out and hurried up the stairs towards the Ravenclaw common room. She had known something was wrong when Lily stopped talking to them at the end of September, but in the past two weeks it had gotten even worse. Whenever she had managed to catch a glimpse of the girl she had looked tired, and she was losing weight, probably because she had gone from eating very little to eating practically nothing.

And the teachers had noticed as well. Lisa had heard from Lavender Brown in Gryffindor that in their last Transfiguration class Lily had completely lost control, and made her beetle explode instead of turning it into a button. The weird thing, as Lavender had informed her in whispers during Defence, was that McGonagall hadn’t taken points off or given her detention, only asked her if she was all right. McGonagall’s expression, this most scandalous information had been delivered in the barest of breaths, might even have been concerned.

Something horrible was happening over in the Slytherin House, and Lisa didn’t know what she was going to do about it. When she had seen Flitwick leading Snape off she hadn’t been able to resist slipping behind a tapestry close to them and listening in.

“What is the purpose of time?” The door knocker asked her.

After a moment’s thought, she smiled at it, “The past to remind us to be better, the present to be experienced to the full, and the future to be anticipated with the wisdom of both.”

“Clumsy wording, but an optimistic appraisal,” The knocker informed her as it swung forwards, admitting her to the Common Room, where she was immediately waved over by Padma and Morag, who were hunched over the _Standard Book of Spells._

“Come solve an argument,” Morag asked, “Padma says that when something is transfigured it becomes wholly the thing that you’ve turned it into, but I think it has to retain characteristics of what it once was. The book says that there are fundamental forces at work in transfiguration which always allow for safe undoing of the conjuring, but that doesn’t answer it either way.”

Lisa sat, “Can I trade you for a real life problem?”

Padma looked up in concern, “What’s wrong?”

“Yours first,” Now that she had been given the puzzle she could understand why Morag and Padma had gotten so worked up over it. “I suppose animagis would be the most obvious candidates to answer,” She said thoughtfully, “And they always retain some element of their appearance as a human, like a leftover idea of what they look like. So I guess that there must be characteristics within the thing they turn into.”

The others nodded, and Padma closed the book, “Now, what’s your problem?”

“You know Lily?”

Instantly their expressions closed, “The Slytherin?”

“Yes, her, and don’t give me that look.” Lily sighed, “She’s being bullied by the girls in her house, and she’s not talking to anyone else. She looks terrible and her school work is suffering as well.”

The girls exchanged looks, and Morag sighed, “If you think it’s that bad, you need to tell a teacher.”

“But you know what Slytherins are like,” Lily argued, “She’d hate me if she knew I went to a teacher behind her back.”

“What’s behind her back?” Padma asked, “You’re just any other student who’s concerned about a classmate.”

“But she’ll know.”

“You haven’t even spoken to her in weeks,” Morag pointed out. Lisa had a tendency of informing them about everything that was going on in her life. “It sounds like your friendship is over anyway. So if you don’t tell then it’ll just keep happening, and you still won’t be friends with her.”

Lisa had to admit that that made sense, even though she didn’t want to admit it. “A Hufflepuff wouldn’t be so logical.” She grumbled.

“But can Hufflepuffs understand Slytherins?” Padma had returned to her book.

Lily smiled wryly, “Can Ravenclaws?”

Morag nodded, “Better than Hufflepuffs, and definitely better than Gryffindors.”

Lisa had to concede the point, but it didn’t make her next task any easier.

***

Flitwick’s office door was almost always open. He liked to talk to the students and loved it when they brought him problems. If he couldn’t help them puzzle the answer out themselves then he was always delighted to have an excuse to go to his books. When Lisa knocked on the door and poked her head round his face lit up, “Ah! Lisa, come in and have a seat, uh, somewhere.” He gestured round his room, which had paper and books on almost every surface, and several free-floating in the air.

She stayed standing, twisting her hands uncomfortably behind her back. Her head of house seemed to realise that something was wrong. “Do you have a problem?”

“You know that I was friends with someone in Slytherin at the start of the year?”

“Yes, Lily Moon, wasn’t it?”

“I’m worried about her.” Lisa felt like the words were building up behind her lips, and when she spoke they all came out in a rush, “She hasn’t been speaking to me or Sally for nearly a fortnight and I know her work has been getting worse. She isn’t eating and it doesn’t look like she‘s sleeping and I think that the other people in her house are bullying her.”

While the analytical part of her brain was scolding her for such a terribly worded explanation Flitwick sighed and hopped off his chair, “Sally is the Hufflepuff girl you met on the train?”

“Yes sir.” She felt like she should say something else, and added, somewhat lamely, “She’s still talking to me.”

Flitwick’s smile was kind, “I have noticed something dear, and I have spoken to her head of house about it.”

“He’s not going to do anything though, is he?” The words were out before she could stop them.

Flitwick’s look turned shrewd and calculating, “What makes you say that?”

“Well,” She scrabbled frantically for a logical explanation, “He’s not exactly like you, is he? He’s not as, uhm…” She was trying to think of a way to describe Snape that wouldn’t be seen as rude but Flitwick waved his hand.

“Professor Snape is many things, but I think he sometimes has trouble understanding the way first years are.” Hoisting himself back behind his desk he allowed himself a grin, “Sometimes I think even someone such as Dumbledore has trouble understanding first years.”

Lisa felt mildly affronted, but didn’t want to say anything. “What should I do about Lily?” She asked instead.

“I will raise the matter. You can rest assured that something will be done about it.”

She nodded and left, standing for a moment beside his door and thinking hard. She didn’t doubt that he’d try and do something, after all Flitwick was a very kind head of house, but she had already seen how Snape felt, and she didn’t think his opinion was about to change anytime soon. She resolved to send a message to Sally somehow, and headed back to the Common Room.

***

She got her chance in Transfiguration the very next day. She got there early and sat down next to the Hufflepuff girl, smiling at her and muttering, “I need to talk to you.”

They waited until the lesson had started and they were covered by the usual bangs and whistles that came with difficult magic. Lisa leaned over and prodded Sally, who flinched and flicked her and wrong, making a stream of water shoot from the end. “What?” She hissed.

“We need to help Lily.”

Sally’s expression closed, “She doesn’t want us to help her,” She said quietly, jabbing at the flower she was supposed to be turning into a spoon.

“Yeah, but she needs us.” Lisa went quiet as McGonagall walked past, and succeeded in turning her own flower silvery and straight. McGonagall corrected the position of her wrist and she tried again, succeeding in transfiguring the petals into a vague scoop shape. “The other Slytherins are bullying her, and it’s our job as friends to help her.”

“She said that we’re not supposed to be friends because she’s in Slytherin.”

“Well then she’s stupid.” Lisa said, turning her rose into a spork. She glowered at the offending piece of cutlery and jabbed her wand again. The spork turned into a knife and she scowled. “Lily needs our help, and because she’s too proud to ask for it we’re going to have to do it without her knowing.”

“So we’re going behind her back?”

“Hufflepuffs never do anything behind people’s backs, so as long as you’re involved it’ll be fine.”

Sally glared at her, “Sneaky. I’m starting to think that’s what all Ravenclaws are like.”

“Good, you’re learning about the different houses.” Lisa deadpanned, waving her wand and turning her flower into an ornate silver spoon.

***

After making enough malformed cutlery to restock the kitchen of any respectable madman, Lisa and Sally followed their respective houses back to their Common Rooms. Halfway down the stairs they saw the Slytherins disappearing into dungeons, and Lisa grabbed Sally and pulled her into a corner, “Right, I’ve got a plan.”

“The last plan you had involved Peeves, I’m learning not to trust them.” Sally tried to stay serious, but she couldn’t hide her grin.

Lisa matched it, though hers was infinitely more mischievous, “This plan is much better, and it doesn’t involve Peeves. It is going to include a lot of cake though.”

“And where are we going to get a lot of cake?”

“Well I thought I’d ask the prefects, they usually know about things like that. And we’re going to need someone who knows how to cause mischief.”

Sally gave her a wary look, “That sounds suspiciously like Peeves again.”

“Oh no, we need someone who’s much better at it than him.”

“Who?”

***

“So will you help us?”

The two red heads they were addressing looked at each other, then back to the first years, “What’s in it for us?” They said in unison.

“Uh, mayhem?”

“Oh no,” Said Fred, or maybe George, “We need something a little more...”

“Solid.”

Sally didn’t like the sound of that. “Like?”

“We don’t like to advertise it, but every so often we’re...”

“Not exactly the teacher’s favourites.”

“So when we start all of this chaos, we want you...”

“To promise that you can definitely get Malfoy.”

“And Snape, if you can do it without getting expelled.”

“Malfoy I can promise you,” Lisa said, “And Parkinson too. Snape might be a tall order.”

“Those are the terms,” George, or possibly Fred, extended a hand, “What do you say?”

Lisa hesitated for perhaps a second, then took his hand. At the same time his twin grabbed her other hand, while Sally found both her hands being shaken as well. They found themselves caught for several seconds in a hand shaking net, unable to break free, and then the twins released them and sprang halfway up the stairs they were on, their smiles bigger than Lisa had thought it would be possible for someone to smile. “See you at dinner,” They said in unison, and disappeared behind a door that had looked like a wall.

The two first years stood there for a minute, wondering about the monster they had just unleashed, “I hope this is worth it.” Lisa said.

“Well,” Sally said as they started back down, “We just told the two biggest pranksters in the school to go mental, and promised in return that we were going to get Malfoy, Parkinson and Snape. I think that whatever happens next, it will definitely be worth it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Lisa stopped at the foot of her staircase, “Well, I’ll see you at dinner.”

***

It started like any other dinner. The Slytherins were still shunning Lily, who was sitting on her own perched on the end of a bench. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were talking while Hermione Granger watched them with an expression of deepest annoyance. The Ravenclaws were all engaged in a debate about whether a flourish was a required element of the swish and flick wand movement, and the Hufflepuffs were their usual cheerful selves. Everything was absolutely normal.

Until a firework exploded in the middle of the Great Hall.

The teachers’ eyes skimmed the Gryffindor table, noting within seconds that neither Fred nor George were there, and stood to order quiet. As McGonagall prepared herself for a truly memorable explosion a piece of violently pink cake splattered against her face.

There was a hushed silence in the Hall as they watched the teacher splutter, and then every dish on the plates turned to cake. Lisa drew her wand under the table and aimed it at the cake sitting next to Sally, whispering, “ _Wingardium leviosa_.” And flicking with appropriate flourish. The cake sailed through the air and landed squarely on a Huffelpuff prefect’s head.

The result was instantaneous, Hufflepuffs around the hall started to throw cake in every direction, hoping to hit the perpetrator, Gryffindor responded when Percy caught a face full of trifle and within seconds the centre of the hall had descended into a furious food fight. Ravenclaw looked to be escaping unscathed until one of the Hufflepuffs, which definitely _wasn’t_ Sally, no matter what everyone said afterwards, caught Flitwick in the chest with a well aimed apple crumble that knocked him from his seat.

Slytherin tried to sneak out, only to be turned on by every other house, and the teachers’ attempts to return control were flummoxed somewhat when Professor Sprout slid on a stray blueberry muffin and sailed the length of the hall on a long trail of frosting. Lisa vaulted the Ravenclaw table and scooped up a nice sticky green liquorice cake and ducked her way right across the hall, her eyes fixed on Malfoy like he had a target instead of a face. She made it as far as the Hufflepuff table before someone blindsided her with a fruit tart. She slipped and her cake went flying wildly, splattering itself across the front of a Gryffindor fifth year two tables away.

Thankfully, by the time the fifth year had turned Lisa had slid onto the floor, which meant that all he could see was Malfoy, looking unscathed and as smug as always. Two handfuls of cherry icing flew across the hall and stained the perfect white hair a dark shade of red and Lisa laughed out loud. Snape rose from his position and began an imposing walk through the middle of the hall, miraculously avoiding getting hit by anything by sheer force of his anger. Lisa, scarcely believing what she was about to do, drew her wand again and pointed it at his shoe.

“Wingardium leviosa.”

His foot flew up, followed quickly by the rest of him, his arms flailing wildly as he fought to keep his balance. He failed spectacularly and took Professor’s Sprout’s route, actually smashing the doors open with the force he slammed into them with. McGonagall had almost managed to regain her composure when a crafty gateau caught her full in the chest and she was knocked back into her chair. Lisa swore that she saw Dumbledore surreptitiously folding his wand back into his robes, but she had other things to do.

She took advantage of a momentary lapse in projectiles to slide under the Hufflepuff table and grab Sally, whose hair had gone blue from frosting. “Come on,” She said, collecting a handful of mousse, “We’ve still got Malfoy to do.”

Sally joined her as they turned and faced the Slytherin table, where Malfoy had finally managed to clear the cherry flavouring from his face, and was looking around in bewilderment. He got a good look at the two of them as they drew back their arms, but he wasn’t fast enough to escape a barrage of pastry that knocked him to the floor, covered from head to waist in a multitude of colours and sugar.

“And now, Lily.”

Lisa couldn’t see her friend at the table or throwing anything, so she ducked down to look underneath, where she saw Lily quite wisely sheltering from the chaos. _Well that just won’t do._

She crawled under the table and gathered up some icing, spearing it over the girls tie and face. Lily looked up in outrage, her eyes widening when she saw who it was. “Come on,” Lisa said, “Now no one’ll know you’re you. Time to join in.”

She hauled the Slytherin back over to the Hufflepuff table and armed her, letting her pick the next target. Lily scanned the Slytherins for a moment before settling on Pansy, who had worked herself into a fine rage over her ruined hair. They waited until the pug-faced girl had stepped on top of her bench, probably hoping to get away, and threw as one.

A volley of sponge sent her careening into the table, where a large helping of jam all but stuck her to the table. Lily turned to Lisa and smiled, before smooshing what had been a birthday cake into her face.

“Oh you are so dead Moon!” Lisa exclaimed, desperately trying to find an appropriate responsive baked good.

***

All told, the Great Hall Great Bakery Fight lasted a total of ten minutes, but it cost hundreds of ties and more than one older year’s makeup. But as Lily returned to the Slytherin table, wiping off her disguise, Lisa decided that it had been absolutely worth it. Especially when Snape finally returned, looking a lot less imposing when his eyebrows were dripping cream. No one quite knew when the Weasley twins had returned, but they did know that Dumbledore had been their target, and the sight of the Headmaster looking more soufflé than man was bound to cheer anyone up.


	8. House Loyalties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls feel conflicted about their friendship

** Chapter Eight: House Loyalties **

 

Lily’s mood stayed good for nearly a whole week after the food fight incident. Whenever Pansy made a snide comment or threw something at the back of her head, all Lily had to do was remember the girl screaming and crying as Snape removed the jam from her hair and it put a smile right back on her face. Draco Malfoy with cherry frosting running down his face and Snape sliding out of the Great Hall on his back were other highlights.

Her spell work improved immensely, and soon she was able to _Aparecium_ invisible ink, buttons and needles, and could create partial outlines of larger objects like books and clothes. In Charms she mastered the tricky art of changing something’s colour more than once at will, and could even control what colour she wanted. Herbology was a little tougher, but at least she hadn’t tried to add a pint of water to dragon dung fertiliser and covered the greenhouse in horrible brown liquid like one of the Ravenclaw boys had.

But of course her good spirits couldn’t last forever. She was still aware that if she actually spoke to Lisa and Sally then she would be right back in trouble with her Slytherin house mates, and while they had eased up now that she was no longer actively communicating with people in other houses, they wanted her to start making friends with them, an activity she considered only marginally less fun than History of Magic. History of Magic at least had occasionally interesting moments.

The week before Halloween Pansy launched her next round of bullying, a well-timed splitting charm depositing all of Lily’s books on the floor of the Transfiguration classroom a minute before the lesson started. By the time she had finished collecting her things and sat down McGonagall had already given her a stern look for holding up the class. _We’re not even supposed to know the splitting charm yet,_ Lily thought as she sat, _I guess causing me embarrassment actually gives them a reason to learn something._

On her way up to the Astronomy tower that night her foot slipped on something and she went careening back down the stairs, narrowly avoiding hitting Daphne on her way down. At the bottom, bruised and sore, she looked down at her shoe to see that there was something slimy stuck there. Climbing the stairs again, she kept her eyes down and saw where someone had left a patch of wet mud and the note, _Careful not to slip,_ in Pansy’s heavy handwriting.

Lily decided that it was time to make friends with Daphne properly. The other girl hadn’t had quite so hard a time as her, but she knew that Daphne didn’t really like Pansy or the others, so that was enough in common to start with.

***

The next morning she struck up a conversation with Daphne about their Charms homework, and agreed to meet her in the library later to study. Satisfied that she was finally getting somewhere, she headed to her classes.

At lunch she and Daphne met up in the library and got to work on the newest spell Flitwick had given them to practice.

“No,” Daphne said for the dozenth time, “Flick, don’t jab, and the swish should be, uhm, bigger?” She demonstrated, and Lily tried to copy her, but even she could see that her attempt looked more like uncoordinated flailing.

“We call it flourishing,” A voice from behind them said.

They turned round to see Lisa sitting at the next table, her books spread out in front of her, she smiled at the girls, “There’s actually some debate on it, but if you try doing it like this,” She swished and flicked her quill, “Then it should work.”

“How do you know?” Daphne asked, not exactly rudely, “We haven’t even learned _Wingardium Leviosa_ yet.”

“Ravenclaw,” Lisa reminded them, “We kind of read ahead most of the time, and I liked the idea of the spell more than anything.”

“How can you like the idea of a spell?” Daphne asked. Lily thought it was fascinating to see the girl opening up so much. It looked like the best way to her was through intellectual questions and magic.

“Well don’t you like some spells more than others?” Lisa had turned her chair round now so they could talk better, “Like transfiguration is really hard, but when you manage it you feel a sense of accomplishment?”

“I do like charms,” She said shyly, “You can do some really interesting stuff with them.”

“See,” Lisa turned back to her books, “I just happen to like individual spells instead of whole branches of magic.”

Lily wanted to say something, but at that moment she saw Pansy entering the library, and thought better of it, turning back to her work with Daphne, who now had a rather goofy smile on her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you talk to someone for so long,” Lily said quietly.

Daphne blushed, “I just don’t really know what to say to anyone. All the other girls are going on about how we have to beat Gryffindor, or they’re listening to Malfoy going on about how they shouldn’t let half-bloods into Hogwarts. And no one in the other houses will talk to me because I’m in Slytherin.”

“So what do you like to talk about?”

“I like magic,” There was something very childlike in the way she said it, “I just think that doing magic is really incredible, but everyone in Slytherin talks about how magic is supposed to be used to help you do things you want to do. Why can’t we just learn about magic because we want to learn about magic?”

Lily could swear she heard Lisa laugh under her breath, but she chose to ignore it, “How did you end up in Slytherin?” She asked, “It sounds like Ravenclaw would have been a better fit.”

Daphne shrugged and buried her nose into a potions almanac, “I guess my family name had something to do with it,” She mumbled, “And I’m a pureblood, and all my family have been in Slytherin.”

It was a depressingly familiar tale, “What are your family like?”

She considered her answer, “They’re very old fashioned.” She eventually said, “They believe in the roper way of doing things. They’re not quite as uptight as the Malfoys, but they’re not far off. My older brother is really bad. You’ve probably seen him talking to Draco, going on about how the old traditions need to be upheld because they’re all we have left now.”

“And what do you believe?”

“I don’t know.” Daphe was talking so quietly Lily had to lean in close and strain to hear her, “My parents aren’t stupid, so I don’t think they’d believe something if it was completely wrong, but then how come that Granger girl is the best in the year? Or half of the Ravenclaws are half-blood or muggle-born?”

Lily didn’t exactly have an answer, but she was spared having to by Pansy coming over and planting herself on the end of the desk, “What are you two bookworms talking about?” She asked.

Lily held up her book, “Flitwick’s charms work.”

“Oh,” Pansy snickered, “You actually care about that old fart? He’s been teaching far too long, and that book? Way too boring to bother reading. And everyone knows he’s too much of a pushover to give anyone detention or anything. It’s almost as soft a class as Herbology.”

Pansy couldn’t see, but Lisa had suddenly gone very tense, and her hand had disappeared somewhere into her robes. “You know,” Pansy continued, “I bet that the only reason old Flitters is here is because he likes young children. I wouldn’t past him you know. He walks around all the time at the girls’ waists, it’s just not right. And all the charms later in the year? Yeah, making things invisible has lots of innocent uses, doesn’t it?”

Lily had gotten used to ignoring Pansy, and it was a lot easier when the barbs weren’t being directed at her, but Lisa didn’t have the same restraint, and Pansy was suddenly whimpering as a wand was jabbed into the side of her cheek, “Stop it.” Lisa said quietly, “Take your stupid with you when you leave.”

“I know you,” Pansy said, her voice quavering, “You’re that Ravenclaw that Lily used to chum around with. Well she’s a proper Slytherin now, so it looks like you’re outnumbered.”

Lisa shot a look to Lily, but she didn’t say anything, instead pressing her wand harder against Pansy’s cheek, “I’m not going to warn you again.” She said.

“Go on then, if you’re so tough.”

Lisa’s eyes narrowed and for a moment Lily really thought she was going to do something, but then her wand lowered and she drew herself up with an air of dignity most of the purebloods would have given anything to possess. “I wouldn’t waste my time on any Slytherin.” She said haughtily. She scooped her books up with one arm and left, nose still firmly in the air.

Pansy looked to the other two, “Well,” She said, “I knew that Gryffindors were stupid, but I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be wise.”

It took a lot of effort for Lily to not repeat her friend’s example, but she wouldn’t want to leave Daphne there with Pansy, and she was more than a little scared of what the consequences would be for her as well. Instead, she turned back to her books, wishing she had only imagined that Lisa had thrown her a lot when she had said ‘any Slytherin.’

***

By the time Lisa reached Transfiguration she had worked herself into a truly fantastic rage, and when she slammed her bag down next to Sally the Hufflepuff girl nearly jumped out of her chair. “What’s wrong?” She asked in concern.

“Lily,” McGonagall wasn’t there yet, so she felt safe ranting, “I was just down in the library, and that horrible Parkinson girl came in and started insulting Professor Flitwick. And I jumped up to shut her up and Lily didn’t say anything, just sat there with some other Slytherin girl and watched it happen.”

“I thought you said she was being bullied for being friends with us?” Sally looked confused, “If she stood up with you wouldn’t she start getting bullied again?”

“Well, maybe, but I thought friendship was supposed to mean more than that!” Lisa hauled her textbook out and slammed it open, “I mean, we started a food fight for her! She should be at least a little bit grateful.”

“Everyone always says that the house boundaries need to be respected, but then suddenly when someone does something that their house always does you get upset.” Sally still looked very confused, “How does that work?”

Lisa took in a breath, then let it out slowly as she realised that Sally had absolutely pierced her argument. “It doesn’t,” She admitted, “But it still means something.”

“So we aren’t friends with Lily anymore?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lisa dropped her voice to a whisper as McGonagall swept in, “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Well I know we have to go to the library after school to talk, because I haven’t got any idea about what I’m doing for Snape in potions.”

***

They met in the library after their lessons and got to work on finding the potion that Snape expected them to concoct in their next class with him. It wasn’t difficult so much as it was complicated, and Lisa had to admit that he couldn’t have set a more fiddly first year potion for them to do. She spent over an hour going over the correct method of brewing for Sally, correcting some points where the book was out of date and adding some things she had asked her house mates about.

“So what about Lily?” Sally finally asked when they were tucking the scrolls away.

Lisa shrugged, “I think we need to talk to her again, see what she thinks about this. Because she hasn’t even tried to speak to us for nearly two weeks. Maybe she just doesn’t want to be friends with us anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sally slung her bag onto her back and led the way out, “I think she just doesn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t have made any friends in Slytherin after all, but they’d bully her if she tried to be friends with us.”

“Since when do you know so much about her?” Lisa asked curiously.

“I don’t understand her, but I’m a Hufflepuff, and we understand friendship.”

Sally was absolutely beaming, which made Lisa raise an eyebrow, “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or sincere, but either way it’s adorable.”

Sally’s smile vanished and she stared at Lisa in wide-eye innocence, “I’m only a Hufflepuff, we don’t know anything about sarcasm. Ravenclaws and Slytherins are sarcastic, remember?”

Lisa chuckled, “All right, you’ve made your point. We’ll talk to Lily, try and work something out so she doesn’t get bullied too badly.”

Sally bounced on her heels and clapped her hands, “Yay! We’re getting our friend back!”

“How long are you planning on doing this act?”

“Act? What act?”

***

With a week to go until Halloween Lisa snuck a note to Lily in the middle of History of Magic, the one class where she knew that no one would be paying attention to them.

_Why didn’t you stand up for me against Pansy?_

Lily read the note Lisa had just passed her and frowned. She didn’t like what it seemed to be saying.

_My house mates aren’t very nice to me when I talk to you._

Lisa chewed the end of her quill thoughtfully as she considered her choices. She wasn’t sure whether she should own up to knowing about the bullying.

_I know they bullied you when you were friends with Sally and me._

Lily’s hand tightened into a fist when she read the note. She hadn’t liked the bullying itself, but that other people knew made it humiliating on a whole other level.

_I can handle it._

“Yeah right,” Lisa muttered under her breath as she scribbled a response.

_You don’t have to do everything on your own you know._

Lily shot the girl a glance, but she appeared to be utterly transfixed by what Binns was saying.

_I don’t have much choice do I? What would you suggest?_

Lisa had been hoping for that question, and it was with no small amount of glee that she flicked her response back.

_How about another flying lesson?_

Lily’s eyes shot up her forehead, but at the same time she could feel the smile creeping back onto her face.

_What day?_

_Monday. Same time, same place._


	9. Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TROLL IN THE DUNGEON! oh yeah and some other important character stuff too

** Chapter Nine: Halloween **

 

Lily hid behind the statue of Salazar Slytherin and waited for the Bloody Baron to pass her. He seemed to be in one of his more dramatic moods, dragging his feet slowly and allowing his chains to clank as much as they possibly could. She knew for a fact that he didn’t have to make any noise if he didn’t want to, so he could only be letting his chains scrape for effect. He had been at it for several minutes now, and she was getting thoroughly bored of it. It was a shock the first time he came round a corner, all bloody and shining and gaunt, but it very quickly tired.

She leaned against the statue and tried to avoid sighing out loud. She still had plenty of time to reach the Entrance Hall, but it was cold and dank down in the dungeons, especially at night. She wanted to see her friends again, and soon. She kept going over the fight in the library and didn’t know how she was expected to have acted. If she had stood up for her friend then she would have been right back to square one, but if she did nothing then she was just as bad as all the other Slytherins. She wondered what a Gryffindor would have done.

_Probably just started throwing spells around and causing mayhem._ The thought made her smile, _That’s the typical Gryffindor response to everything, cause as much chaos as possible._ She peeked her head round the statue and saw one of the other ghosts arriving to talk to the Baron, hopefully asking him to go somewhere else. _Alright then, what would a Hufflepuff do?_ She leaned back behind her statue and strained to hear the ghosts’ conversation.

_A Hufflepuff would stand up for their friend of course._ That was obvious. Hufflepuffs were sorted for loyalty first, and everything else second. No matter what people thought about the house, and how it took everyone else, it still had a standard that you had to be held to. _Well that doesn’t make me feel better._ She saw the ghosts leaving and head on her own way. _If Sally had been there she’d have stood up to Pansy in a second._

She bolted the stairs two at a time. _So what would a Ravenclaw do? If they saw someone who was getting into a fight with Pansy?_ She paused just outside the Entrance Hall, hearing the unmistakeable lilt of McGonagall’s Scottish accent and Snape’s drawl. _A Ravenclaw would work out the odds, and two against one is better than one against one._ That thought wasn’t very nice either, because it only left one house left. _A Slytherin would work out whether they had anything to gain from it._ McGonagall swept up the stairs and Snape stalked past her, close enough that she could see the lamplight reflecting in his hair.

She went into the Entrance Hall and waited for her friends, _A Slytherin does everything for themselves, and that’s exactly what I did._ She frowned, wanting to find some way around it. _Nope, sorry Moon, you did exactly what your house said you would._

Sally arrived a moment later from the dungeons, and together they hid behind the statue of the Architect. _Well maybe I didn’t._ Lily was still thinking hard, and thankfully Sally didn’t seem in her usual chatty mood either. _Maybe I did what my house_ expected _me to do. Maybe what I should have done was stand up for Lisa. Maybe my friends will actually be better for me in the long run than my house._

Lisa arrived in a flurry of robes and crouched down next to them, “Any second now,” She muttered, and just as she finished talking the doors were opened by an incredibly drunken Hagrid, who was singing a song that seemed to feature ‘Harold the Hornéd Hunter’ but it was possible he was slurring it too much for Lily to make out the words. He turned to go up the stairs and Lisa nudged them, “Now!”

They sprinted out the door and pulled it partially closed behind them. “Now if someone happens to look they’ll think it’s closed, but we can get back in,” Lisa told them before leading them back over to the flying lessons courtyard.

“How did you know Hagrid was going to come in?” Lily asked.

“I was talking to some prefects who had to go on a detention with him once, and they told me all about Hagrid. They said he gets drunk on a Monday and comes up to the castle really late to get food from the kitchens.”

“What if he hadn’t come today?”

Lisa shrugged, “They said he’s as regular as clockwork on his Monday food pilfering run. I thought it was worth a try.”

They had reached the courtyard, and Sally bent down to reach under one of the sheds and open it with the trick she had been shown. They chose their brooms and soared into the night sky, thankful that it was a new moon. They could go much higher than before, trusting that they wouldn’t be seen by someone casually looking out of the window. Lily enjoyed the freedom of it, swooping over the roof of the Great Hall like a demented bat. Sally was doing some sort of clumsy loop the loop and Lisa was diving at the ground again and again.

Lily sped back to the courtyard, Lisa meeting her halfway and they flew back together.

“Do you want to be friends with us?” Lisa asked suddenly.

Lily slipped on her broom and had to pull out of a sudden nosedive. “Yes,” She said when she had finally righted herself.

“Well then why didn’t you stand up to Pansy like I did?”

“Because she’d make my life miserable in the dorm,” Lily admitted quietly, “I don’t want that to happen again.”

Lisa considered that in silence, altering their path slightly so they were heading out towards the grounds, “But you can’t just let her control you like that.” She reasoned, “You have to do what you want to do, or you’re going to be pretty miserable for the next seven years.”

Lily shrugged, “If I do what I want I’m going to be bullied for the next seven years, if I don’t do what I want then I’m going to make myself miserable for the next seven years. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that we’d still be your friends, and we’re a lot nicer than the ones you’d make in Slytherin.”

Lily twisted her broom back on course towards the courtyard, where Sally had ended her loop the loop on one of the upper floor balconies. “You can’t exactly stop me from being bullied.”

“Well we can when you’re not in the Common Room, and if someone like Pansy does make things hard then we could teach her a lesson.”

“That won’t stop them in the dorms.”

“Well then tell us whenever someone bullies you in the dorms and we’ll get them back.”

“And you’re sure you won’t get caught?”

Lisa nodded, “A Ravenclaw and a Slytherin teaming up? I think we’d have more than enough cunning and brains to get one over on Pansy. I’m amazed the girl can even find her wand most days.” She landed next to Sally while Lily went to catch the girl’s broom, which had made a bid for freedom and was sailing over towards the Forbidden Forest. Once Lily had caught it and brought it back Sally hopped on and they set off again, keeping close together as they flew round the courtyard and over towards the shed again.

They stored the brooms and Lily smiled to the other two, “Okay, let’s try again. Sooner or later Pansy’s bound to get bored isn’t she?”

Sally hugged her, “Yay!” She started skipping back to the school, “This is going to be so much fun. We have to go exploring again, I was talking to this third year, and they said that there’s this cool hidden passageway that can get you from the fifth floor to the dungeons.”

“And what’s so cool about it?” Lisa asked. “There’s lots of ways to get from the fifth floor to the dungeons.

“Well apparently this is a pole that you slide down to get there faster.”

“Sliding down a seven story pole?” Lily raised an eyebrow, “That sounds a little bit, uhm, insane.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine!” Sally bounced back and hugged her, “And we’re friends again, so you can come with us.”

Lily couldn’t help it; she started to laugh along with her friends.

***

As Halloween approached Lily began to spend time with Lisa and Sally again. They sat together in class and spent their lunchtimes in the library trying to get their homework finished in time. Lisa was invaluable when it came to figuring out their transfiguration work, and Sally had a knack for charms that even Lily couldn’t quite match. The three of them together could usually work out the mountains of work Snape set them to do, and when it came to figuring out exactly what Quirrell had even said in Defence it was all hands on deck.

After school they went exploring around the castle, trying to stay out as long as they were allowed before Lily had to return to the Slytherin dungeon. They tried Sally’s seven-story sliding pole and liked it so much that it became a regular part of all of their daily routines. Whenever they needed to get from Transfiguration to Potions they suddenly found themselves first in the classroom instead of last. They also found a slide that led from the third floor to the second, giving them a useful shortcut down to Charms when they were running late.

Lily’s schoolwork began to pick up again, and soon Flitwick was awarding her points nearly every lesson as she began to delight more and more in the subtle crafting of charms. In Herbology she was allowed to handle one of the Venomous Tentacular cuttings, thought it did give her a rather nasty bite. Professor Sprout assured her that it was very common, and that the cut wasn’t deep enough to leave a scar.

After History of Magic on Thursday morning Pansy decided that enough was enough, tripping Lily the second they were out of the classroom and sending her crashing into a bookcase. Instantly Lisa drew her wand and hit Pansy with the curse of the bogies, which left the Slytherin screaming as her nose began to stream uncontrollably. Lily managed to slip past the rest of the crowd, grinning at Lisa as she did, and ducked into one of her new favourite passages, which would lead her down to the Entrance Hall.

_I’ll probably pay for that later,_ She thought as she ducked under a low hanging tapestry, _But it was so worth it just for the look on her face._

***

Pansy didn’t go near her for the rest of the day, and even as they went up to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast Pansy’s little clique marched purposefully ahead of her, instead of surrounding her and exchanging jibes like they normally would have done. Lily was grateful for the quiet, choosing to walk with Daphne instead and try to work out what Binns had wanted them to do for their homework.

The Halloween feast was beyond anything she had expected, and the Great Hall was almost indistinguishable with its decorations up. Swarms of live bats flocked between and above the tables, sweeping low enough to brush the students’ heads with their wings, and there were great pumpkins carved into grinning skull faces that actually grinned if they were looked at for too long. The candles cast a blue light rather than the usual yellow, and the whole thing felt eerily like the dungeons in the middle of the night, only festive instead of terrifying.

As Lily looked back to the door she saw Snape enter just as a swirl of bats gathered around him, making it look like he had transfigured himself out of them. She giggled at the image, stopping quickly when his gaze swept the table and caught her eyes. She turned instead to her meal, which was better than anything she had had before. She wondered who cooked the meals as she tucked into her lamb chops and avoided meeting her year mates’ eyes.

She looked over to the Ravenclaw table and saw Lisa smiling and laughing with her friends, but when she saw Lily looking she raised her glass in toast. Sally, on the table between them, saw the gesture, and held her own goblet up as well. Grinning, Lily nodded to the two of them.

“TROLL!” The doors burst open someone came sprinting in, “IN THE DUNGEONS!” Lily watched in shock as Quirrel raced to the teacher’s table and practically fell onto Dumbledore’s plate, “Thought you ought to know.” He finished, before collapsing dead away.

While the hall erupted into chaos Lily sank into her seat in shock. She had heard all about trolls, how they stood nearly twelve feet tall and were little more than dumb animals. _If one got in, if it got up here…_ She looked up and saw Lisa staring at her, her face a mirror of Lily’s fear. _At least the muggle borns don’t know how scare they should be._ She thought dully as Dumbledore stood and fired a series of firecrackers from the end of his wand.

The Hall quieted down and stared at the Headmaster as he told the prefects to lead their houses back to the dormitories. _Wait,_ Lily jerked her head up, _Back to our dorms? He wants us to go to the dungeons with the troll?_ She shared another look with Lisa, and knew she was thinking exactly the same thing, Sally looked between them as well and as the houses stood and started pushing towards the doors the three girls managed to force themselves together.

“I’m not going to the dungeons with a troll down there,” Lily whispered to Lisa, who nodded.

“The Entrance Hall tunnel?” She practically mouthed it, and Lily nodded, “We’ll have to be quick.” Lisa carried on, “Follow my lead.”

“No,” Lily gripped Sally’s robes and steered her towards the edge of the pack, “You follow my lead, I’m the sneaky one remember?”

She watched the prefects carefully, making sure that they were all at the front of the queue of students, and with a quick glance behind to make sure the teachers weren’t too close, she slipped behind the cover of a statue, trusting that the rest of the students were too preoccupied with talking about the troll to notice them. It seemed to pay off, and no one shouted at them or noticed that they weren’t in the group anymore.

They hunched behind the statue like they always did, waiting until the teachers had gone past. Once all of the students were clear Dumbledore came striding out of the Great Hall, his robes billowing and his face showing very little of the cheer it usually did. He was flanked on either side by McGonagall and Flitwick, with Professor Sprout bringing up the rear. Lily watched them walk past, then ducked down and looked at Lisa and Sally, “Where’s Snape?” She mouthed.

Sally shrugged, then dragged Lily back down into better cover as someone else came out of the Hall. They watched in bemusement as Quirrel went by, looking much more authoritative than usual. Once he had gone Lisa finally poked her head out, “I think it’s safe,” She told them quietly, tiptoeing across to the entrance to the tunnel.

“Where was Quirrel going?” Sally asked as they slid into the passageway and crept along. “He went up the stairs, not down, and wasn’t he unconscious?”

“You know Quirrel,” Lisa muttered, “Scared of his own shadow. He’s hardly going to be facing a troll now is he?”

“What’s so bad about trolls?” Sally asked, “Everyone went mad when he mentioned them.

“Do you know anything about them?”

Sally shook her head, “The only trolls I know about are these dolls you can get with crazy hair.”

Lily stopped dead in the tunnel, staring at her friend, “What?”

“They’re like little plastic toys, and they have different personalities like Elvis troll and wizard troll. And they all have this crazy hair which sticks straight up, and they’ve all got different colours. Kinda like My Little Pony, only for boys.”

“What’s My Little… you know what?” Lily pushed on, “Don’t even try to explain.”

Lisa followed, smirking, and Sally brought up the rear, “So are trolls different in the wizard world?”

“They’re really stupid, not much more than dumb animals really. But they’re big, and strong, and every so often one develops a taste for humans.”

“Oh,” Sally went quiet for a few seconds, but she soon recovered, “And so there’s no chance one could just get into Hogwarts?”

“Not without help,” Lisa said darkly.

“Who would let a troll in?”

“Someone trying to play a joke, someone hoping to terrify some poor person who happened to be down in the dungeons.”

“I don’t like what you’re implying,” Lily said, leading them up the spiral staircase.

“I’m not implying anything.”

“You’re saying that the only people who would let a troll in would be a Slytherin,” They had reached the halfway point of the tunnel, “We know the dungeons better than anyone, and we’d think it was funny to terrify some poor Hufflepuff, or just cause general mayhem.”

“Well you have to admit that the hat does fit.”

“Why couldn’t it have been a Gryffindor?”

“Well that makes no sense.”

Lily reached the top of the stairs and rested for a moment as her friends joined her, then together they started to crawl along the tunnel, which was much lower than the entrance. “The Weasley twins know the secret tunnels better than anyone, they know the ways to get around magical security, they like causing mayhem and they hate Slytherin.”

Sally piped up from behind, “I saw them when Quirrel came in, they looked absolutely terrified. Also, they were actually there during the meal, so they couldn’t have done it.”

“It would be kind of hard to keep a troll quiet long enough to get back up to the Hall and have a full meal before it started causing chaos.” Lisa agreed.

“Maybe Quirrel let it in,” Lily snorted.

Sally and Lisa laughed along with her, “Oh come on. Quirrel obviously ran screaming the second he even heard it. Probably wasn’t even a troll, just the Bloody Baron breathing hard and convinced him there was something there.”

They had reached the exit, and crawled out from underneath a bookshelf just in time to hear something scraping below them. Lily raced to the door that led to the staircase and peered round it, recoiling in horror as she saw a huge hulking figure pausing at the second floor. It looked up and she fell back, _Please don’t come up, please don’t come up, please don’t come up._ Lisa and Sally had rushed to her side and now helped her to stand, half dragging her back towards the Defence classroom. They heard the crunch of wood against stone, still at the second floor, and knew it had decided on something more interesting underneath them.

Lily sagged against her friends and started sobbing, clinging tightly to their robes as they all sank into a corner. “Come on,” She heard Sally saying above her, and felt arms around her shoulders, “It’s alright.”

“We should be safe here,” Lisa said, the slight quiver in her voice belying her nervousness, “But someone should tell the teachers it’s left the dungeons.”

“I-I-I’m not g-g-g-going _near_ that thing.” Lily protested, hunching further into the corner, as if she could just melt into the brickwork.

“Me neither,” Sally’s voice sounded a lot higher than normal; “Did you _see_ that thing? It was huge!”

Lisa sank down next to them, “I know. Merlin’s beard I’d hate to see what that club can do.”

Below them there was a scream and a crash, followed by a moment of sickening silence. The three girls froze, and when they heard another scream they all looked at each other, “We have to tell the teachers,” Lisa said, and pushed herself up, rushing to the door. She had barely made it halfway across the corridor before they heard, even over the racket from downstairs, the sound of several dogs barking, and they sounded like big dogs.

Lisa raced back and huddled next to the others, “What are they keeping in the school?” She asked, her voice high pitched and hysterical. Before anyone could answer a door was flung open and they went silent and still as Snape came limping out, cursing and holding his robes partly open over one leg. He headed straight downstairs, and seconds later a furious looking Quirrel followed from another door, all as the three girls cowered in the corner.

Below, the noise was beginning to quiet down, and Lily looked between Lisa and Sally’s pale faces and couldn’t resist a nervous giggle. “Next time, I’m just going to follow my prefects.”


	10. Quidditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trousers and other things

** Chapter Ten: Quidditch **

 

The sun rose on a perfect morning for the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch match, and the atmosphere in the hall was, to put it mildly, intense. When Lily had to duck the third flying cup she wondered whether it might have been a better idea to just grab some toast and run, but in truth she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The Gryffindor team could be seen huddled up at the table, their captain looking like he was going to be very sick any minute, and the Seeker looked even worse.

Lily wasn’t sure whether she could believe it or not when she had first heard that Harry Potter was the new Gryffindor Seeker. On the one hand, bending the rules was not fair, and she had seen the package he had received one dinner. If the person who sent it thought they were fooling anyone they were sadly mistaken. He had been bought a broomstick and allowed to play Seeker, which was completely unfair.

On the other hand, he had caught a Remembrall she hadn’t even been able to see after a fifty foot dive, which was so close to impossible she almost wasn’t able to believe she had actually seen it happen.

And, not that she would have admitted it to anyone, even Lisa or Sally, but she didn’t want to see Slytherin win. Sure it would be nice to have the extra house points, but to see the smug looks wiped off her house mate’s faces, if even for a few days, and stopping the Slytherin team from strutting around like they owned the place was worth almost any price. Besides, they were actually racing neck and neck with Ravenclaw for the cup, so Gryffindor getting the points wouldn’t even give them that much of an advantage.

Eventually the captain of the Gryffindor team rose and muttered something to his team, who filed out slowly. At the head of the Gryffindor table Marcus Flint waved off the girl who was cooing in his ear and thumped the table, nodding to the rest of the squad, who stood and grouped together with the assurance of a team who knew they were going to win. At the head table Snape watched them file out with his smuggest grin yet, exchanging a look with McGonagall. Lily blinked as she saw McGonagall stick her tongue out for a split second. _I never knew._

As she stood and headed out herself Lisa hurried to her side, followed a moment later by Sally, “Ready to watch your team lose?” Lisa snarked.

“Oh you’d like that wouldn’t you?” Lily punched her friend on the arm, “Just you wait, we’ll win the Quidditch match, get the points, and finally get ahead of you properly in the House Cup.”

“Keep dreaming Moon, Ravenclaw are on form this year, that cup is ours.”

“How does Slytherin even get all those points?” Sally asked curiously, “I thought they didn’t like working in class?”

Lily shrugged, “If you want to get ahead you have to learn magic, if you learn magic you do well in class, if you do well in class then you get points.”

“That… makes a lot of sense actually.” Lisa admitted.

They trotted down the grounds towards the Quidditch pitch, laughing as Lee Jordan accosted people and got their bets for the match. Lisa flicked a galleon at their heads, “Gryffindor to win,” She said, “Potter catches the Snitch.”

“A bold bet young lady,” Lee said, scribbling it down on his parchment, “Betting against the reigning champions.”

“And where does the Slytherin bet lie?” He asked, cocking his head at Lily.

She looked left and right, then drew a galleon and placed it in his hands, “Slytherin are going down, and Potter’s going to get the Snitch.”

His eyebrows shot into his hairline, but he took the bet down anyway and looked to Sally, “And for the Hufflepuff?”

“Same bet,” Sally passed them a galleon, “But I bet Slytherin score more hoops.”

“Okay, okay,” Lee took it all down carefully, “See you after the match girls,” He waved airily, and they headed on.

“Slytherin scores more hoops?” Lisa demanded.

Sally shrugged, “I was talking to the older years, they said that Slytherin has really good Chasers the last few years, so they’ll probably score more hoops, but if Harry catches the Snitch then Gryffindor wins anyway, and isn’t that a really pointless part of the game? Like you can score as much as you want, but if the other team catches the Snitch then they win anyway!”

Lily and Lisa exchanged a look, “Do you know anything about Quidditch?” Lisa asked.

“Not really.” Lily replied.

“I suppose when it gets to professional levels, one team is usually good enough to score more than fifteen hoops in a game, so you can still win even if you don’t catch the Snitch.”

Sally didn’t look entirely convinced, but they had reached the pitch, and any questions she had would have been lost in the noise. They clambered up the steep steps and sat on the first bench that had enough spaces empty. They were soon surrounded on all sides by older year Ravenclaws, who nodded to Lisa, but regarded Lily with suspicion.

“So I take it when we play Ravenclaw I can expect to be sitting with my year mates?” Lily muttered to Lisa.

“We’ll steal you a scarf, you’ll blend right in.”

Lily _hmmed,_ and a moment later the teachers appeared in the highest box, the address system squealing loudly as Lee Jordan settled into his position. Lily wondered whether the commentator would even attempt to keep up the air of neutrality through the match. She knew she’d have been cursing out Marcus Flint within the first five minutes if she’d been up in the booth. He went about introducing the first match of the year and the crowd went wild, Lily included.

Almost directly below them the Gryffindor team marched onto the pitch, carrying their brooms and watching the crowd with apprehension. Lily found the tiny figure of Harry Potter at the back and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for him. _Everyone on the Slytherin team is literally twice the size of him._ She thought, and as the teams lined up the comparison became even clearer, _He’s going to be flattened by them._

The captains shook hands and stepped back to their teams. The crowd cheered again, then went quiet as the players mounted their brooms and soared into the sky. Lily leaned forward and watched Madame Hooch releasing the Golden Snitch, then hefting the Quaffle. She chucked it into the air and kicked the side of the box, releasing the bludgers in the same moment. As the Chasrers swept into position and began the fight for the Quaffle a bludger immediately tried to unseat Marcus Flint, who went spiralling out of the melee.

Lily cheered along with the Ravenclaws as one of the Gryffindor girls snatched the quaffle out from under the arms of a Slytherin player and went streaking up the pitch. She ducked and dived between a huddle of Slytherins and scored the first ten points. The Slytherin section of the audience were the only ones booing as the stadium erupted into cheers, and the Gryffindor players, galvanised by early success, went on to steal the quaffle again in seconds.

“Oh wow!” Sally’s eyes were shining as she tried to follow every player on the pitch, her blond hair sweeping round her shoulders, “This is the greatest thing ever!”

Gryffindor pulled ahead quickly, but then Slytherin turned nasty, and the game turned brutal. Fouls were awarded on every side and the early lead began to diminish. The crowd were more subdued, and Lily could hear one of the Ravenclaws explaining something to Lisa. “This is where conditioning pays off. If you haven’t caught the Snitch in the first twenty minutes, then the Chasers and Keeper had better be bloody good at their jobs.”

It seemed Oliver Wood was more than up to the task, and he sent away almost every ball that came near him, including one save that set Lily’s heart racing as he swung off his broom to avoid a bludger, kicking the quaffle away and swinging back up with ease. He looked like a mother bird protecting a nest, always in motion, his head jerking to follow the play of the quaffle. Lily found herself transfixed by his play; he seemed to ignore all other concerns, the players, the bludgers, the crowd, focusing only on the red ball which every so often rocketed his way.

She was so enraptured by Wood that she didn’t notice the commotion gathering until Lisa grabbed her arm and yelled, “Look at Potter!”

And indeed the entire crowd was looking at Potter, who suddenly seemed to have completely lost control of his broom. It was jerking every which way, flinging its rider across the sky as he tried hard to hold on. The Weasley twins flew close, trying to bring him down, but the broom jumped higher, and for a horrible second he teetered dangerously on it, before finding his seat again. Wisely, the twins began to circle beneath him, clubs abandoned and arms outstretched.

“Why won’t someone do something?” Sally asked, looking close to tears.

“Who can?” Lily asked, scanning the teacher’s box. They all looked just as shocked at the turn of events, even Snape, who seemed to have his mouth open at the sight. “If he falls they’ll catch him,” She tried to reassure Sally, but she didn’t know enough about magic or Quidditch to know if that was possible. The bell signalling points scored started to ring, but everyone was ignoring it.

“Oh Merlin,” Lisa said faintly as Harry was flipped over the front of his broom, barely managed to catch it with one flailing hand, and then gripping it between both, his grip visibly slipping, even from their position. “He’s going to fall,” Sally flung her arms around Lily and buried her face in Lily’s robes, while Lisa’s hand found her arm and gripped it, vice-tight. Lily could only watch in horror as one arm slipped, and the crowd gasped as one.

Not quite as one.

Lily saw a flicker of blue from the teacher’s box, and suddenly there was commotion as Snape threw himself up, trying to furiously bat at his robes, which had caught fire. The sight struck Lily as completely out of place, but then there was a collective intake of breath, and a red blur shot straight to the ground. “Where’s he going?” Lisa asked.

“I’d be sick,” Lily responded faintly.

Harry Potter staggered to a halt on the grass of the pitch, coughing something into his hands and staring at it. _No way._ Lily craned forwards to look, and saw that there was a hint of gold in his palms. “He caught it.” She said in disbelief.

There was a dull roar, like the thunder before lightning strikes, and the Gryffindor students exploded into cheers, followed closely by the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. No one was even sure of the score, and Sally still hadn’t quite let go of Lily’s robes, but for a few brief seconds everybody saw Harry wave the Snitch above his head, before he was completely engulfed by a swarm of red robed players.

“He did it!” Lisa bellowed at the top of her lungs, hugging a fifth year she had never met, “He caught the Snitch!”

Lily found herself included in the round of bear hugs and back slaps, and didn’t even bother wondering whether anyone knew which house she was in. She managed to find her way back over to Sally and Lisa as the students started to file back out of the grounds, and they stared at each other breathlessly before launching into a group hug.

“That really was the best thing ever,” Sally exclaimed, “Oh, where’s Lee?”

“No idea,” Lisa was dragging them both to the exit, “Why?”

“I just won a whole load of galleons.”

***

“Don’t you own any clothes that aren’t robes?”

Lily looked up to see Sally staring at her over the top of a book. They were in the library and it was, in Lily’s opinion, far too late. Incensed at Slytherin’s loss, Snape had taken it out in the usual way he let out aggression, on his students. When their essays for Potions were finally done they would resemble branches of trees instead of sheafs of parchment. It took her a moment to process Sally’s question, “What do you mean?”

“Well look at me,” Sally gestured at her muggle clothing, denim trousers, a pair of trainers and a cotton shirt, “And look at Lisa,” Lisa had an overcloak on to keep the chill out, but underneath was wearing a pleated skirt and shirt, “And then look at you.”

Lily looked down at her full body robes. They were lighter than her school robes, and the cut was informal, with a belt to mark where her waist was. They were no different to the robes any self-respecting witch would have worn. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, are you wearing trousers under them?”

She blushed furiously, “Yes I’m wearing trousers,” _Sort of._ They weren’t like Sally’s trousers, or the trousers with creases in them that Lisa sometimes wore. More like robes that happened to be made per leg instead of for the whole body.

“And you’re wearing a shirt?”

“A tunic,” She corrected absently, crossing out a misspelling in her twentieth paragraph, “Traditional wizarding attire.”

“But lots of the students wear muggle clothes, so why don’t you? Or just take off the robe and wear the trousers and shirt.”

“Tunic, and that would be indecent.”

Sally seemed to have completely abandoned her essay, “Why?”

“Because you don’t wear your under things on your,” She waited for the right word to occur, “Outer,” She finally settled on.

“But the robes aren’t really an outer thing,” Sally said, “More like an outer-outer thing.”

“That’s not a real thing,” Lisa said quietly, tugging Sally’s essay over and starting to work on her more eccentric suggestions. When Sally got bored she tended to make things up that sounded exciting instead of sticking to the book.

“Well robes are more like a jacket than a shirt.”

“How does that make sense?”

“Well first you wear your underwear,” Sally explained slowly, “Then you have your trousers and shirt.”

“Tunic.”

“And then you put robes over the top of it all. Doesn’t it get very hot?”

Lily had to admit that that was a fair point. Instead of addressing it she turned back to her essay, but Sally saw right through her, “See, wearing just your trousers and shirt would be a lot more sensible.”

“Tunic, and I already said, that would be indecent.”

“So am I indecent?”

“No, you’re wearing muggle clothes, those are different.”

“How can trousers be different whether they’re muggle or wizard?”

“They just are, it would be like asking you to walk around wearing only a vest instead of a shirt.”

“Well that would be silly.”

“It’s exactly the same thing,” Lily finished, knowing she sounded more than a little pompous, and went back to her work.

“If you say so,” Sally went back to her essay, and Lily distinctly heard her mutter, “Doesn’t seem like the same thing.”

Later that night as she pulled off her robes and watched the other girls do the same she wondered if Sally might have been right. She had been brought up being told that you wore robes, and the stuff that went under them was only for lounging around the house in. She had owned some things that her mother assured her were muggle clothes, but on the few occasions they had journeyed into the village she hadn’t seen anyone else wearing anything like it. Or any of the adults wearing anything like what her parents wore either.

The local boys had always called her a ‘toff,’ whatever that meant, and had laughed when they saw her coming. When she had been very young she had assumed it was just a muggle thing, but then her cousins had been even worse to her so she knew that it wasn’t just muggles who made fun of her. She laid her robes over the clothes horse next to her bed and pulled her tunic off, staring at it and trying to work out what was so indecent about it.

It was made of cotton, the same as the shirts that Lisa and Sally wore. It wasn’t see through, even when she held it up to the light, and it was almost as thick as her robes, just a little bit softer on the skin. Obviously part of the reason they had to wear it was to have something with a collar to tie their ties around, but that didn’t mean that it was completely useless as a garment otherwise. Her father had once worn some sort of ridiculous contraption that had simulated the look of just the front of a shirt, but he didn’t wear it all the time.

She gave her trousers a similar examination. They were dark navy wool, practically shapeless but just as heavy and opaque as her shirt. There was no logical reason she could find to wear something over them, but the little voice in the back of her head that sounded like her grandmother reminded her that it just wasn’t done.

Except it _was_ done, just not at school, or in Diagon Alley. When the cousins were younger they had been allowed to play outside without their robes on, and apart from complaining about having to get grass stains out of the white tunics the mothers hadn’t minded. It was only when they got older that they were expected to wear robes all the time. And of course they weren’t allowed to play either.

As she clambered into bed and waited for the lights to blackout she wondered whether she should take Sally’s advice. Pansy’s snoring reminded her of the problems associated with that. She knew that Lisa had done something else to Pansy at some point, which apparently had been scary enough to make the girl leave her alone, but dressing like a muggle, even if it was in clothing that was technically wizarding, would cause the sort of trouble she was determined to avoid.

She burrowed under her covers and closed her eyes, _Maybe someday, but not for a while._


	11. Clearing Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Tis the season

** Chapter Eleven: Clearing Up **

 

The castle seemed to plunge into winter, rather than slide gently from autumn.

All of a sudden it seemed that the trees were turning white, and the temperature of the castle dropped from ‘unreasonably cold’ to ‘oh Merlin I’m wearing five layers and I’m still freezing.’ Students rushed everywhere with scarves wrapped up to their noses and hats pulled down so that only their eyes were visible. If the Slytherins stayed in the Common Room they did so wearing their overcloaks and heavy winter robes.

Lily sat shivering in Charms and wondered whether Flitwick was really there, or if he had just stacked up a pile of jumpers and charmed them to quiver occasionally as the students took his short exam. He had decided that before they left for Christmas he wanted to know how much had actually sunk in. She moved slowly through the question paper. There weren’t that many questions, and if Flitwick really was there then he was more than content to let them talk to each other, and Lily was fairly certain that some of the Hufflepuff boys had started a game of Exploding Snap in the back row, and Pansy hadn’t even taken her quill out of her bag.

She sat next to Sally and the two of them talked about what they were doing for Christmas. Lily wasn’t certain that she wanted to go home, but then she definitely didn’t want to spend Christmas in Slytherin tower, alone with Pansy and the older years. Malfoy was going home at least, but that wasn’t much comfort to her. He seemed to have spent more time trying to get Potter expelled than he had doing anything else recently. But Pansy had decided to restart the bullying in the dorm again. So far it was mostly just petty tricks, like putting an entanglement jinx on her hairbrush, so when she tried to brush her hair it just became hopelessly knotted, but it was certain to signal something more.

She finished her essay and floated it over to Flitwick’s desk, and from inside the pile of clothes she heard someone squeak, “Five points to Slytherin Miss Moon.”

Smiling, she returned to her conversation.

***

Lily decided that she wanted to help with the decoration of the Great Hall, even if she wasn’t going to be around to see it. Lisa and Sally joined in of course, and so the three of them got to spend a weekend fetching and carrying things as the teachers and older years moved the decorations into place. It was even better than the Halloween decorations, with real icicles suspended from every overhang, and great streams of tinsel. But instead of the usual muggle tinsel, these were long streams of gold and silver chains, hanging mere inches above the tables in certain spots.

Every surface was frosted in white, and there were enormous Christmas trees in each corner, covered in baubles the size of footballs, glinting in the candlelight. Lily was sorely tempted to stay, just to see the place in all its glory on Christmas morning. As they worked Lisa and Sally asked her about her plans for Christmas.

“I’m not sure,” She said, “I don’t want to stay here all alone with Pansy and the rest of Slytherin, but I don’t want to go home, especially because I’ll probably have to spend some of it visiting Malfoy and the Greengrass family.”

“Why?”

“We’re cousins twice removed or something. Almost all the pure-blood families are related somehow, there just aren’t enough pure bloods in Britain to keep us from intermarrying. Those who have managed it tend to try and keep up traditions a lot more than those who don’t.”

“But I thought your family lived with muggles?”

“My family isn’t old money enough to own a mansion, like Malfoy, so they were forced to move somewhere else, and that somewhere else happened to be near a muggle village. It wasn’t really a choice. But that explanation wasn’t good enough for the other pure blood families. They treat us almost as badly as they’d treat muggle borns, but because we’re pure blood they can still keep us around and ridicule us publically.”

“That’s horrible,” Sally said, “No wonder you hate Malfoy and Pansy so much.”

Lily shrugged, “You kind of get used to it after a while.”

“How about you come round my house for Christmas?”

She said it offhandedly, but at the suggestion they all went quite and stared at each other, “Hang on a second,” Lisa said, “That’s not an entirely terrible idea.”

“What?” Lily looked at her other friend.

“Why don’t you spend Christmas with us?”

“Because that wouldn’t be fair to your parents?”

“I’m sure mine would be fine with it,” Sally said, “As long as I send them a letter to check first.”

“And my mum loves having people over for Christmas,” Lisa said, “I mean, we might not be able to have you over on Christmas day itself, but apart from that...”

“So wait, how would we do this?”

“My house first?” Sally suggested, “Then you go and spend Christmas Day with your family, and you’re round Lisa’s by Boxing Day?”

“Day after Boxing Day,” Lisa corrected, “We go and see _my_ cousins on boxing Day.”

“We could be back at Hogwarts a week before term starts,” Sally finished.

Lily looked from one to the other, feeling a grin spreading across her face, “Alright then, let’s do this.”

***

Lisa’s mother got back first, a big barn owl clattering to a stop on the Ravenclaw table in front of her. She read the letter to them later in the library.

“I would be delighted to have your friends over after Christmas, as long as their families can send me an owl to confirm they have allowed it.” Lisa read excitedly.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take for my mum to send a response.” Sally admitted. “I don’t know if they can receive muggle post here...”

“They have people,” Lisa said vaguely, “They work in muggle post offices, making sure that letters get where they’re supposed to go.”

“Oh,” Sally’s had gone wide, the way they normally did when she found out about something magic. “That’s crazy.”

Lily nodded, “Yeah, we have to interact with muggles nowadays a lot more than we used to. Back when it was wizards on one side and muggles on the other we could live entirely in secret. Then we started to intermarry, found out that there were children being born to muggles who had magic. We had to start interacting. At first it was easy, just do what you had to do and memory charm them. Nowadays, people tend to notice when strange stuff happens, and we can’t memory charm them all.”

“What’s a memory charm?”

“Does exactly what it sounds like,” Lisa pulled her book of Advanced Charms out of her bag and flicked to the right page, “Memory charms take away bits of a person’s memory. They can be general charms that wipe out whole chunks, or a more advanced user can take out only certain memories so there’s less missing.”

“And what do the muggles think has happened when they wake up with a day of memories missing?”

“The brain fills in the blanks for them. Usually just adding in what they would normally have been doing before they saw the magic. Or they think they fell asleep and had a weird dream. I’ve heard about some people who can resist memory charms, but there aren’t many of them.”

Sally considered the information, then shook her head, “That doesn’t sound like a very good thing to do,” She said, “We just go around changing muggles memories whenever they meet us?”

“It’s better than the alternative.” Lisa said, “We can’t let muggles find out about us, they’d panic, start trying to get rid of us. We had enough of that during the middle ages.”

“I thought they didn’t really burn witches and wizards, just poor people who got mistaken for having magic.”

“They had their facts straight, just not any good way to act on it.” Lily opened up her Transfiguration book to start work on McGonagall’s essay. “When they somehow managed to catch a real wizard or witch they’d always escape alive, but all the poor muggles who got wrongfully caught just got burned to death.”

“It’s the whole reason they created the memory charm,” Lisa said, still reading from the book. “When the witch or wizard escaped they would hit everyone with a memory charm and the muggles would be none the wiser.” She had already written a foot of parchment on her essay, and nudged Sally to remind her to start as well. “It’s not exactly our finest hour.”

They worked in silence for nearly ten minutes, until eventually Sally looked up, “It’s just weird you know?”

“What’s weird?” Lily asked.

“The memory charm thing. When I was told about the wizard world I thought that it would be magical, and there wouldn’t be any problems ‘cause they’d all be solved with spells and stuff. Then I get here it’s all the same problems, just with magic instead.”

Lisa snorted, “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“We have got one thing though,” Lily said.

“What’s that?”

“We get to wear all the cool clothes.”

Madam Pince didn’t throw them out, but she did threaten that if they laughed again she’d hex their mouths closed.

***

Sally’s parents’ answer came back the next day, confirming that she would be happy to have Lisa and Lily over to stay for the first week of Christmas. Lily wrote to her parents and asked permission to stay, and received the response the next day. Her parents asked that she spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day with them, but otherwise said that they would be happy for her to spend time with her friends.

Of course, that was only part of the letter. She read and reread it as the term drew to a close, wondering exactly what her parents were trying to tell her.

 

_Dearest Lily_

 

It opened with her mother’s delicate hand.

 

_We are glad to hear that you are doing so well at Hogwarts. Your time there will be important to you for the rest of your life; I know that mine still is, so you should make the most of it. I am glad that you have managed to make friends, though I would have preferred if you had made some within your own house as well of course, but I cannot fault you for your choices. A Ravenclaw should be the perfect match for you in terms of brains, and you can ask no more loyal a friend than a Hufflepuff. It sounds as though they have already helped you out several times._

_I know that it can seem hard at Hogwarts, and that some of your relatives or year mates might try and make things more difficult for you, but you have to rise above it. You are a Slytherin after all, and that carries with it a certain manner. I would hope that your father and I have not put too much pressure on you in this regard, and indeed I had wondered for a long time about which house you would find a home in, but now you are Sorted you must make the best of it. Slytherins may be difficult to get along with, but the rewards are more than worth it._

_Charms was my favourite class at Hogwarts too, though I never got on with Herbology, too much dirt under the fingernails. Your father, of course, favoured Arithmancy, but you won’t have to worry about that until you reach your third year. Have you been studying hard? What spells have you learned so far? It seems like you hardly write dear, and we would like to receive more letters, just to know how things are going._

_I hope you have a good time at your friends’ houses, and we look forward to seeing you over Christmas. I hoped that you would stay for three days at home? Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day please._

_Love_

_Mother_

 

What was that about wondering what house she would be Sorted to? All the family had gone into Slytherin after all. Had her mother thought she might bring further dishonour to the name of Moon by being sorted elsewhere? Her father had added his own note underneath, his own solid handwriting a steady counterpoint to her mother’s more elegant style. Much like their personalities in many ways.

 

_You might not understand exactly what I mean until you leave school, but your house does not define who you are. You have been placed into Slytherin because of who you are, not because of who you should be. As you know I do not stay in regular contact with my old house mates, but we do always enjoy entertaining the Grissoms, who I would regard as the most normal Hufflepuffs you could imagine. I am glad that you have made friends with Lisa and Sally. In fact I encourage it. I hope very much you remain as wise throughout all your school years._

 

At the very least he was a lot blunter when it came to addressing issues. She knew how much he hated Lucius Malfoy, but was forced to stay in touch with him because of family tradition. But it surprised her to hear that Peter Grissom had been in Hufflepuff. She suddenly found herself wondering which houses her parents other friends had been in, and whether they had been friends at school as well. She had always sort of assumed they were all Slytherins.

She folded the letter over thoughtfully, glad that she was going to be able to stay over at Lisa and Sally’s. The thought of staying at Hogwarts was enticing, certainly, especially after having seen the Great Hall decorations, but experiencing it while spending her time in a dorm with Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode was not her idea of fun. Daphne and Tracey were both going home, along with Theodore Nott, who was one of the few boys in her year she could stand.

She sat on the edge of her bed and tapped her wand idly on the chest of drawers, bored and with nothing to do. She knew she had several things she needed to work on but she wasn’t used to working without her friends anymore, and trying to focus on the transfiguration work made her head spin. She switched to her Herbology book and started to read up on the best ways to treat toothache in a Venomous Tentacular.

Giving up after half an hour, she started to pack instead, stuffing her clothes and books into her trunk and dragging it to the end of her bed. The train was leaving the next morning and the three of them were going to meet in the Entrance Hall before it went so they could make sure they got a carriage together.

Just as she was lying back on her bed Pansy walked in and stood at the foot of her bed, glaring at her. “You think you’re smart don’t you?” She started accusingly. “Get your friends to gang up on me while you go slumming with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Well after Christmas things are going to be different around here. I’m going to show you a side of Pansy Parkinson you’ll wish you’d never seen.”

Lily wondered if Pansy realised how ridiculous she sounded, “Why can’t we just ignore each other?” She asked, “I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me, and it’ll make life a lot easier around here.”

“You bother me just by being here,” Pansy hissed, “I knew Hogwarts was going to be bad when I was told about Dumbledore but I didn’t realise it was so terrible that a no talent blood traitor like yourself could get into Slytherin.”

“I’m doing better than you in class,” Lily pointed out mildly.

Pansy stalked round and loomed over her, “Just because I don’t want to be a swot doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.” She drew her wand and waved it around, “How about we prove it? Witch’s duel, right here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lily fought to keep her voice steady, but she dropped her hand to lie on her chest, inches away from her wand. She reckoned she was probably faster than Pansy on the draw, but her mind had gone blank of any spells she could have used. “Besides, Snape would have our heads if he knew we’d been fighting in the dorms.”

“Well he’s not going to know about it is he?” Pansy swiped her wand and yelled something indistinct. Lily rolled to one side to avoid it but nothing flashed or banged, and she hit the floor unscathed, drawing her own wand and holding it by her leg as she stood and faced Pansy.

The two stared at each other, Pansy’s eyes squinting and narrowed, Lily’s wide as she tried desperately to think of anything that would help her. Pansy waved again and Lily dived to the side, feeling wind rush through her hair as the spell missed and clattered into Daphne’s curtains, changing them from dark green to lilac. Lily’s shoulder collided painfully with the brazier and she finally remembered a spell.

“Aguamenti,” She shouted, pointing her wand in Pansy’s general direction. Instead of the jet of water the book promised there was a single squirt which hit Pansy in the eye. Lily grimaced as Pansy shrieked and ducked behind the brazier properly for more cover. Her quick thinking was rewarded as another spell sparked off the metal and ricocheted into a desk of drawers, which started flapping and rattling.

At that moment Snape burst into the room and whispered, “Enough,” In the deadly quiet voice they had all grown to fear. Pansy stopped shrieking immediately and Lily stood from behind the boiler to see Snape glowering at them from beneath curtains of greasy hair. “Your wands,” He instructed, holding out his hand. Pansy laid hers in first and flounced off to her bed, sitting on it with her arms crossed and her face turned away. Lily stepped forwards and laid her own wand in his outstretched palm, avoiding meeting his eyes.

He held their wands up and drew his own, muttering something under her breath and pointing his wand at Lily’s. A jet of smoke that looked like water shot from it, then disappeared, followed by the image of a candle floating. Snape broke the connection and repeated the process with Pansy’s which showed first an image of the chest of drawers rattling, then green smoke which changed to lilac, and then finally a smoky afterimage of what looked like a nose covered in boils. He broke the connection and held Lily’s wand out.

“Five points from Slytherin, and detention when you return. You may go.”

She fled as he turned on Pansy, and it was only a small comfort that the girl had gone from looking her usual haughty self to looking absolutely terrified. Outside the dorms she ran straight into Millicent Bulstrode, who glared down at her. “You got Pansy in trouble,” She said, though it sounded like she was having a hard time putting the sentence together.

“She did that perfectly well on her own,” Lily was aware of a crowd of Slytherin girls surrounding her and Millicent, most of them looking murderous.

“You had better watch yourself,” Millicent grunted, “We don’t like blood traitors.

Lily slipped past her and through the throng, making it to the Common Room without anyone else accosting her, and leaned against the hard stone wall, “Well I don’t like slimy cowards, but look what I got stuck with,” She muttered, and then, hearing footsteps approaching from the girls’ side, she ran out into the dungeons.


	12. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls leave Hogwarts for the first time!

** Chapter Twelve: Christmas **

 

“Is something wrong?”

They had barely gotten to their seats before Lisa leaned forwards and caught Lily’s eyes with one of her trademarked piercing stares.

“Nothing,” Lily lied, diving into her bag to avoid the look.

Lisa kept watching her as she pretended she couldn’t find her journal, eventually _hmming_ to herself and leaning back in her chair. Sally bounced on one of the seats, looking for all the world like an excited four year old as the train picked up speed leaving Hogsmeade. “I love Christmas,” She informed them for at least the twentieth time since the first snow had fallen, “Everything looks so white and magical and you get to celebrate and have presents and the whole family gets together and sings carols only sometimes my uncle gets too drunk and he changes the words a bit so they’re rude.” She descended into a fit of giggles as Lisa and Lily watched in amusement.

“My Christmas is going to be a little different,” Lily said, doing quite a good job at hiding her bitterness. “On Christmas Eve we read history and remember how the wizards who helped make Christmas what it is were abandoned by their muggle friends when the witch hunters came calling. Then on Christmas Day we exchange our presents in the morning, after which we have a formal luncheon, and then either visit our cousins or walk down into the village to observe a muggle nativity.”

“Well that sounds _dreadfully_ boring,” Sally said, “Why do you do that?”

“Because it’s traditional.” Lily leant further back in her seat and closed her eyes, enjoying the gentle sway of the train, “And then on Boxing Day I practice magic with my parents, and we discuss how my studies are going, followed by more family visits.”

“And I thought _my_ Christmas was going to be a snore fest,” Lisa drawled, watching the forests whip by, “Christmas Eve spent listening to my elderly grandma talking about how things were a lot better back in the old days before all these new-fangled inventions and commercial ill-will ruined the true Christmas spirit, while granddad tries to sneak in a few extra sherries. Christmas Day will be fun at least, because that’s just me and mum and dad all sitting around eating too much chocolate and watching Christmas movies, and then on Boxing Day we just kind of lie around regretting all the chocolate we ate.”

“Which grandmother reminisces about the old day?” Lily asked curiously.

“Pick one. My mum’s mum is still alive, and so’s my dad’s mum. I swear, get them together and they’d spend all day setting the world to rights while granddad Turpin and granddad Hawkins cackle and tell rude jokes.”

“Does your father’s mother know that one side of the family are magical?” Lily had never really known what families with one muggle and one wizard did.

Lisa smiled and shook her head, “Not at all, when grandma Hawkins starts banging on the tv complaining about ‘all these muggle inventions,’” She put on a convincing old woman’s grackle in imitation, “Grandma Turpin just thinks she’s complaining about new technology in a different language. I think my dad’s parents think my mum’s parents are Jewish or something.”

“What’s Jewish?”

“Far too complicated and boring to explain, even on a train journey this long. Basically one set of grandparents think the other set are foreign.”

“That must be hilarious when you get them all together.” Sally said.

“Not so much actually. Get them too drunk and they all start to turn on each other. Last time we had to stop grandma Hawkins from drawing her wand, ‘cause it turns out grandma Turpin is one of the rare muggles who’s completely resistant to memory charms.”

“Your family Christmases must be insanity.” Lily observed dryly.

“You have no idea.”

***

The train rattled on through the middle of the country and they bought some sweets from the trolley. Sally still had her love of Bertie Bott’s, and munched happily through a pack of them while the other two tucked in to the chocolate frogs and started trading the cards.

“How many of those are there?” Sally asked, pointing to the cards, “Oh and by the way, soap.”

Lily gagged and stared at her friend while Lisa swallowed the last bit of chocolate and examined the card, “There are hundreds, completing a collection means buying more chocolate frogs than real food for nearly a year.”

“How many have you got?”

“I’ve got about four hundred, but that’s including the ones where I’ve got several of the same one. I’ve got about twenty of Merlin.” She turned the card round, revealing the image of Helga Hufflepuff, “Want to start a collection?”

“Not really,” Sally swallowed, “Bubblegum.”

“I’ll take her,” Lily handed her a Nimué card in return, “I know someone who needs Hufflepuff.” Lisa handed the card over and she slipped it into her robes, “So how are we getting to your house Sally?”

“My mum’s going to be there, she’ll drive us home.”

“Drive?” Lily quirked an eyebrow, “Like, in a car?”

“Yes, that’s usually what I mean when I say ‘drive.” Sally spoke slowly, as if to someone not used to English.

“Don’t be sarcastic,” Lily admonished, “It’s not a good look for Hufflepuffs.”

“Sorry. We’re going to be driving back to our house.”

“I get to experience so many new things with you two,” Lily chuckled, leaning back and starting on a pumpkin pie.

“Well maybe if you went out and found some things you could surprise us for a change.” Lisa pointed out, “I thought Slytherins were supposed to be the sneaky ones.”

“Only when it helps get us ahead in life.”

“Well if you want to get ahead of us, then be sneaky.”

Lily laughed at that, leaning back in her seat and surreptitiously slipping her hand into her robes. While Sally and Lily started to talk about presents Lily drew her wand slowly out from her pocket and held it alongside her thigh, aiming carefully at the pile of empty wrappers between the two. With a quick flick she muttered, “ _Lapifors._ ”

The spell hit a box at the very bottom of the pile, and it exploded up into a white rabbit, which sniffed at twitched its ears a few times and bounced on Lisa’s lap. Sally shrieked and threw herself across onto Lily’s side while Lisa stared down into the rabbit’s little eyes. The spell only lasted another second before the rabbit turned back into an empty box of sugar quills. Lisa looked up in shock at her friend, then over to Sally. For several seconds there was silence in the cabin, and then they all started to laugh.

“Oh, that was sneaky!” Lisa managed to gasp out between breaths.

Lily shrugged, but the effect was ruined by the fact that she was bent almost double with laughter, “I try, I try.”

When they had finally calmed down Lisa fixed Lily with a shrewd look, “Lapifors isn’t a first year spell.”

“No it isn’t,” Lily confirmed.

“So how come you knew it?”

“I got bored and pulled one of the third year transfiguration books from the library. I can’t make rabbits that last for very long unfortunately.”

“Still,” Lisa drew her own wand, “It’s very advanced for our year, and I’d hate for people to start thinking that Ravenclaw are falling behind Slytherin in terms of work….”

She aimed at the pile of boxes, “ _Lapifors!_ ”

Nothing happened.

“Ooh, ooh, my turn,” Sally drew her wand and waved it, “ _Lapifors!_ ” The spell hit and every single box turned momentarily into a rabbit, leaving them with a pile of heaving white fluff that started to bounce out into the corridor as Sally looked on in shock. Ten seconds later the rabbits turned back into cardboard, and Lisa and Lily were both staring at their friend.

“How did you do that?” Lisa exclaimed.

“I don’t know!” Sally was staring at her wand like she had never seen it before, “I was just thinking about how much I wanted the boxes to turn into rabbits and poof! It happened.”

“Well, don’t let it happen again,” Lily’s heart was still beating furiously in her chest.

***

The snow lasted all the way to the south of England, and as they pulled into Platform 9 and 3 Quarters Sally had managed to work herself into a frenzy about how great their Christmas was going to be. She bounced up and down on her seat, chattering away, “We’re going to be able to build snowmen, and have snowball fights, and make snow angels, and have hot chocolate and…”

“Sally,” Lisa stopped her, “We get that you’re excited, but please, I’m getting a headache.”

Sally shut up, but it seemed that the energy was going back into her; because she started to bounce so fast she was practically vibrating. Just as Lily was about to grab her to stop her from moving the train slowed to a halt and the other students started to file off. Sally jumped to her feet and pulled her rucksack down from the rack, “Come on, time to go, time to go.”

Lily and Lisa were slower to get going, already exhausted by spending so much time in a confined space with Sally. As they collected their bags Lily leaned in to Lisa asked, “Are we sure about this? A whole week with Sally?”

“Don’t be mean,” Lisa whispered back, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

They walked out onto the platform, dragging their trunks behind them, and Sally headed for the barrier to King’s Cross. They managed to get past the huddle of students and through the barrier, and Sally starting looking around. “Mummy!” She yelled, and rushed off, dragging her suitcase behind her.

Lisa and Lily followed her to a frazzled looking woman with long blonde hair who was hugging Sally. “You must be Mrs Perks,” Lisa said, holding out her hand, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Mrs Perks shook hands with Lily and Lisa, “It’s nice to meet you both,” She said, “Sally has told me all about you of course.”

Lisa and Lily exchanged significant glances, which Mrs Perks spotted immediately, “Ah, maybe not everything then. Shall we get going? It’s going to be quite a drive I’m afraid.”

As they followed after her Lily turned to Sally, “Are you sure there’s no magic in her?”

“Why?”

“The only other person I’ve seen who can do that is McGonagall.”

“No, that’s just my mum. She had to be on the ball, looking after me and my brother.”

“Your brother who’s never showed any signs of magic?”

“That’s him. Doesn’t stop him from being able to give us all a runaround whenever he wants to.”

Lily and Lisa exchanged another significant glance, though this one was more of the _Oh Merlin, what have we got ourselves into?_ variety.

***

The car ride was actually fairly pleasant, because after the hours on the train everyone was far too tired to do anything. Sally nodded off in the front seat and Lily felt like joining her. Mrs Perks drove steadily through London and on to Cambridge. It was nearly midnight by the time they arrived at her house, and the girls were starting to feel the effects of a whole day travelling.

“Well, come on,” Sally’s mum bustled them into the house, “Off to bed with you straight away, you can tell me all your exciting stories in the morning.”

Far too tired to object, the girl’s stumbled upstairs and into Sally’s room, which was about as vivid and hectic as Lily had imagined it would be. There were two mattresses set up on the floor, and they collapsed onto them with relieved sighs, “I am so glad your mum was prepared,” Lisa groaned as she nestled down into the covers of her bed.

“That’s what she does,” Sally managed to get the sentence out around a mighty yawn, “Wait until you see her tomorrow when she’s properly awake.”

“If she’s anything like you,” Lily mumbled, already half asleep, “I’m sure this is going to be a crazy few days.”

***

The next morning they were woken up by a loud crashing noise from somewhere down the hall. Lily sprang up with her wand already in hand, having learned to associate loud noises with the pranks in the dorm. Lisa was up next, grabbing Lily’s wand and yanking it out of her grip before she could curse the door off its hinges. Sally was last up, her hair a complete mess that left her nearly unable to see.

“Oh good,” She muttered darkly, “Henry’s up.”

“That’s your brother?” Lisa asked, peeking warily round the door.

“Oh yeah,” Sally rolled out of her bed and onto Lily’s mattress, “Makes a lot of noise for a six year old doesn’t he?”

“It sounds like the Bloody Baron,” Lily gave Sally a swift kick, and she rolled onto Lisa’s mattress instead, “Does he have any chains in there?”

“Not that I know of, what time is it?”

Lisa checked her watch, “Six thirty. I have not got nearly enough sleep.”

“Well trust me, you’re not going to be getting any more,” Sally struggled to her feet, “Now Henry’s up, the rest of the house follows.”

As the three girls dug around in their bags looking for hair ties and clean clothes Sally’s door banged open and something rushed in and tackled Sally back onto her bed. “You’re back you’re back you’re back you’re back you’re back!”

Lily was glad Lisa still had her wand, because she would probably have drawn it again. As it was she looked over to where Sally was being pinned to the bed by something dressed in pyjamas that had pictures of what looked like a man with his underwear outside his trousers. _Now that has got to be a muggle thing,_ She thought as the boy finished hugging his sister and looked up to see the other two girls in the room.

He moved faster than Lily could believe, propping Sally up and hiding behind her, peering out from under her arm and whispering, “Who are they?”

Sally grabbed him and brought him to sit on her lap, “Henry, these are my friends. This is Lisa and this is Lily. Say hello.”

“Hello,” He mumbled into the front of his shirt, staring at his sock-clad feet.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Lisa said, crouching so she was on his level and trying to catch his eye, “I like your pyjamas.”

“Thank you,” He looked a little happier, and Lisa seized on her chance.

“Do you like Superman?”

It was obviously the right question, because he immediately became whirling ball of energy, running around the room with his arms outstretched and babbling at full speed, “He’s only the coolest superhero ever acoz he can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes and punch right through walls and then go neooow and stop crinimals,” Still chattering, he raced from the room and down the hall, leaving them in stunned silence.

“He’s like you,” Lily finally managed, “But with the volume turned up.”

Sally shrugged, “I did try to tell you.”

They heard footsteps on the landing and Lisa quickly hid their wands as Mrs Perks put her head round the door, “Oh, you’re up,” She already looked frazzled, “Well, I’ll get breakfast on soon.”

“Thanks mummy.” Sally said, and she left them to it.

“Right,” Lisa took charge, “Sally, where’s the bathroom? I want to shower before breakfast.”

“Down the hall, second door on the left,” Sally gestured vaguely, and Lisa pulled her towel from her bag.

“Right girls, I’ll see you in a minute.” And with that she strode authoritatively from the room.

Sally started to go through her drawers, “So what are you going to be wearing?” Sally asked, “My parents probably won’t be used to robes, no offence.”

Lily frowned, “I hadn’t thought about it,” She frowned as she held up her under-trousers. “Will these be okay?”

Sally examined them, “Well it’ll look like you’re wearing pyjamas all the times, but I’m sure my parents won’t care.” She pulled out some of her own trousers, “You know, maybe you should think about getting some muggle clothes. You might find you like them.”

“I am perfectly happy with my wizard clothes thank you,” Lily told her, dragging her own towel out of her trunk. She sat down on the edge of her mattress and looked around Sally’s room. “It’s very pink in here,” She said.

“I like pink,” sally said defensively, “It’s a fun colour to have.” She pulled her Hufflepuff scarf out and examined it thoughtfully, “But I suppose yellow is actually a pretty nice colour as well.”

“I think it’s supposed to be gold,” Lily commented, finding her own scarf and shoving it to the bottom of her bag, “But one way or the other it’s better than green.”

Sally shrugged, “I quite like green, just not as much as other colours.”

“You actually have favourite colours?”

“Don’t you?”

“I’ve, I’ve never really thought about it,” Lily stammered.

“Maybe you should,” Sally said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Everyone should have a favourite colour. It’s like having a favourite number or a favourite word.”

“I don’t have those either,” Lily admitted.

“You should!” Sally bounced off her bed and down onto Lily’s mattress, “Like my favourite number is eight, and my favourite word is butternut, because it just sounds so interesting, both buttery and nutty. Butter, nut, butternut.”

“I’m starting to come to the conclusion that my friends are all insane,” was Lily’s only response.

Lisa came back with her hair still dripping wet and nodded to the others, “Shower’s free.”

“I’ll take it,” Lily said, jumping brushing past her friend, “Maybe you can make sense of what she’s talking about.”

“At half six in the morning?” Lisa sat on her mattress, “Actually, that’s probably a great time to try, so go on Sally, what’s on your mind?”

As Lily left she could hear Sally start up again, “So I was just asking what Lily’s favourite word is, or her favourite colour or her favourite number, because I think everyone has to have those sorts of things.”

“Well I have a favourite colour,” Lisa said thoughtfully, “I really like dark purple or really navy blue, but I’ve never thought about a favourite word or a favourite number.” She thought about it for a second while Sally watched in fascination, “I suppose fourteen is quite a nice number,” She decided, “But there are just too many words for me to choose from.”

“Well I suppose you’re too smart, so you know too many words.”

Lisa frowned at that, “You’re smart as well.”

“Yeah, but not like you and Lily,” Sally had finally found her own towel, and now started to wrap it compulsively round her arm, “You always know all these extra spells, and you like big words and read really thick books.”

“The Lord of the Rings is nowhere near as complicated as you’re making out.” Lisa sighed.

“I couldn’t even get past the tenth page, it was boring and used far too many made up words and nothing even happened.”

“That’s a word I like,” Lisa decided, “Caradhras.”

“And what does that even mean?”

“It’s a mountain in the Lord of the Rings,” Lisa told her, “And you shouldn’t complain about made up words, we spend most of our time at school now learning all sorts of weird words, and you can remember all of them.”

“Yeah, but Wingardium Leviosa isn’t made up, it’s a spell.”

“That someone at some point made up. Most of the spells derive from Latin.”

“See!” Sally pointed at her accusingly, “You know that spells come from Latin. I didn’t know that.”

Lisa didn’t have an answer to that, so she settled for drying her hair and waiting until Lily got back to see if she had any better ideas about how to comfort their friend.


	13. Christmas with the Perks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin

** Chapter Thirteen: Christmas with the Perks **

 

Once they’d finally gotten Henry calmed down enough to sit in a chair and eat his breakfast the morning started to pick up fast. Sally’s mum wanted to know everything about their first term at Hogwarts, and her dad was fascinated by the way that little things worked, like the food appearing on their plates every meal time, or the way that the staircases could lead somewhere different on certain days, or be in a different place but still lead to the same room or corridor.

Lily found herself answering a lot of questions about wizarding life that she had never even thought about before. How did owls, Mr Perks wondered, manage to get from one end of the country to the other, or even across international waters, in such a short amount of time? She didn’t know the whole answer, but she did know that Owl Post owls were enchanted to give them more endurance and make them faster than normal owls. And their post still wasn’t as fast as muggle post, she reminded him.

“Well, our post has its moments,” He told her, waving his fork for emphasis, “I remember I once sent out a letter and it didn’t arrive for nearly a month, and that was first class too!”

This led them into a whole discussion about the different ‘classes’ of mail, one that Lisa and Sally ignored in favour of telling Mrs Perks about the secret passageways they had found.

“It just doesn’t sound safe dear,” She said to her daughter as they recounted the fun of the seven story sliding pole. “I mean, what if you fell off?”

“Then something would catch me,” Sally assured her, “It’s magic mummy, they have ways of making sure things are safe.” Lisa opened her mouth to point out how there were always dangers though, but Sally kicked her in the shin under the table and she managed to turn it into a smile before her mum noticed.

“Hogwarts has been looking after children for hundreds of years,” She reminded everyone, “They’ve gotten quite good at it now.”

“So Sally has told us about your lessons,” Mr Perks said, “What do you two think about them?”

Lisa went first, “Well my favourite is Transfiguration, because it’s very complex. It requires you to really get to grasp with the complex theories behind magic, instead of just waving your wand and making things explode.” She fixed Sally with a look as she said it.

“Hey!” The girl protested, “I don’t blow _everything_ up.”

“I think we’d like to know about you blowing anything up,” Sally’s mum said curiously, “You told us that your lessons were about making things float or changing their colour.”

“They are,” Sally insisted.

“It’s just that Sally’s wand has a tendency to get,” Lily shrugged, searching for the word, “Excited.”

“Wands can get excited?”

 _I have no idea;_ Lily nodded enthusiastically, “Yes. Different wands feel different, that’s why you have to have one that matches you. Sally’s wand matches her.”

Mr Perks nodded wearily, “And Sally loves having fun.”

“The wand chooses the wizard,” Lisa said in a fair approximation of Mr Ollivander’s spooky tones. “It’s not always clear why. But sometimes,” She switched back to her usual voice, “But sometimes it’s very clear.”

Any retort Sally might have been about to make was spoiled by Henry throwing a bread roll at his mother’s head to get her attention.

***

After breakfast Mr Perks decided that, since Lily had let slip that she didn’t know what a cinema was, he was going to introduce her to the concept. They got bundled up in their heaviest clothes and braved the cold of a Cambridge winter to head down to the local cinema. Lily hadn’t wanted to borrow any of Sally’s incredibly pink wardrobe, so she was in her heaviest cloak, suddenly wishing she had given in. She had never been aware of the way she dressed before, but as they hurried through Cambridge she realised very acutely that she didn’t look like everyone else.

“Nice coat!” She heard someone yell, “Goth still in this year?”

She burrowed her head deeper into her robes and ignored them, feeling Lisa and Sally moving closer on either side. She felt better as Sally gave her a shoulder bump, “I think robes look cool,” She whispered, “They get all billowy in the wind.”

Lily smiled her thanks, and they trudged on.

“Now,” Mr Perks said when they reached the cinema, “I thought we could watch that new Disney film.”

“What’s a Disney?” Lily muttered to Lisa.

“They make animated films,” Lisa muttered back.

“Oh.” Lily nodded, then turned back, “What’s animated?”

“You’ll see.”

They went inside and lined up as Mr Perks paid for their tickets, Lily pulling off her cloak and folding it so it was an indistinct bundle. She didn’t want people staring at her in the cinema after all. “So what do you do in a cinema?” She asked Sally.

“You watch films.”

“And what exactly are films? Your dad didn’t really explain that to me.”

“Well it’s moving pictures up on a screen. And you sit and watch the pictures, and they tell a story.” Sally thought about it, “Kind of like radio, only with moving pictures to watch as well as listen to. Or theatre, but you’ll always see the best angle.”

“And this film is animated.”

“Yes.”

“But no one will explain what animated is?”

“Also, yes.”

“Right,” Lily nodded and stepped back to stare around at the inside of the cinema, “Just so it’s all clear.”

Mr Perks finished buying their tickets and ushered them along to the next kipsk, where there were some more familiar sights. Lily might not have any idea what ‘candy floss’ was, but she recognised sweets when she saw them. Mr Perks got them a big bucket of popcorn and a stick of candyfloss each.

Lily attempted to take a bite out of her candyfloss, but it didn’t feel like she had managed to get any of it. She stared at the food harshly and then tried again. This time it felt like she had tasted something sugary for a second. “My food is troublesome,” She growled, taking the biggest bite she could, and finally feeling the softest hint of something on her tongue, which quickly faded. “What sorcery is this?”

“That’s candy floss,” Lisa said, smugly taking a bite out of hers, “And it’s lovely.”

Once she had finally mastered the art of eating it properly, Lily had to agree. They shuffled in to the cinema and Mr Perks led them up to their seats, pointing the girls to theirs, “You’re sitting there, I’m going to be at the back so I’m not in your way.”

“Thanks daddy,” Sally plonked herself down in her seat and balanced the popcorn on her lap, “Come on,” She told the others, “The adverts are always worth watching.”

Lily had to admit, as the lights dimmed and the first adverts began to play, that the cinema had been a very good idea indeed.

***

By the time they left the cinema Lily was almost as bouncy as Sally, gripping her robes and talking at full speed, “Oh Merlin’s beard that was absolutely incredible! I can’t believe how they made everything look so magical and the story was so romantic and everything could talk and they all joined in for impromptu singing which was kind of weird really but it was still really cool and do you think maybe we could learn to do that in school…” She trailed off as she ran out of breath and Mr Perks smiled at her.

“So I take it you like films?” He asked.

She nodded back at him, “Oh yes Mr Perks, thank you so much for taking us to see that I didn’t even know that muggles _had_ things like that and really it makes me wonder because it was so much more exciting than sitting around reading or listening to the wireless but it was kind of like a play and I do like those so mph!”

Sally kept her hand clasped over Lily’s mouth, “Shh,” She said, “You’re making people stare.”

Lily frowned and stuck her tongue out, making Sally recoil with a horrified shriek, “Oh I’m going to get you for that you little snake.”

Lily dashed a short way away to avoid Sally’s wild grab, “Just try it Puffer!”

“You forget I’ve got her on my side!” Sally chased her around a lamppost and they raced on towards the car park.

“How do you know Lisa’s on your side?”

Lisa turned to Mr Perks, “Is this what it was like raising Sally and Henry?” She asked.

“You have no idea.”

“You are a brave brave man Mr Perks,” She told him, and then rushed off after her friends with a huge smile on her face, “I’m not on anyone’s side!” She announced as she pulled Sally’s hood over her face, “Ravenclaw forever!”

“Oh I’ll get you for that wise girl,” Sally struggled out of her hood and scooping up a handful of snow. Before she could throw it Lily blindsided her with a carefully aimed snowball and the Hufflepuff went staggering to one side. “You’re next,” Sally coughed through the snow as she tried to focus on a target.

Lily’s moment of victory was short lived when a second later her glasses were covered in a thick white layer and she heard Lisa’ laughing a short way away, “No fair,” She cried, wiping the snow away, “Picking on the girl with glasses now?” She found a rubbish bin with a heap of snow on top and gathered up an armful, heaving it all over Lisa, who stood in shock for a moment as icy cold water snaked down the back of her top. Sally came back into the fray in the same moment, and Lisa’s jet black hair turned pure white as another snowball caught her in the side of the head.

Not one to let Sally get away with such a sneak attack, Lily lobbed the remainder of her snow and showered the Hufflepuff as well, turning to make a run for it only to see Lisa waiting for her with two fresh handfuls, which she smushed right into Lily’s chest, sending it into her shirt, “Oh not funny,” She chattered and pulled Lisa’s hood forwards so it covered her face, ducking to avoid Sally’s inevitable counterattack so it splattered against Lisa’s chest instead.

“Girls,” Mr Perks called in vain, “Maybe we should go home?”

Sally paused for a moment to throw a snowball at her dad, then turned right back to Lily, who was using an unaware Lisa as a human shield while she gathered more snow. The air was soon thick with flying snow as the three girls all sought an upper hand, and only when they were all thoroughly soaked and thoroughly freezing did they finally collapse into a panting heap, Sally’s dad strolling calmly over, “Now?” he asked, and they nodded wearily in response.

***

Staying at Sally’s house turned out to be more fun than Lily could have ever imagined. They were allowed to stay up late watching movies, provided they didn’t mind getting no sleep when Henry woke them up at half six, regular as clockwork. Her father knew all the best things to do in and around the city, and took them out almost every day, where they bought presents, or went looking round museums and libraries, which Lily and Lisa found a lot more interesting than Sally.

Her mother was just as good, not only when it came to cooking but at being there whenever they wanted a chat. She seemed to know everything about muggle fiction, and leant Lily several books that she assured her would change her life, and when Lily stammered about making sure she got them back safely Sally’s mum just smiled and said, “How do you think I got them in the first place?”

Henry, when he wasn’t being a terror, was fun in a very different way. Growing up without brothers or sisters Lily had always assumed that she would have hated younger siblings, given how little she enjoyed her time spent with her extended family, but she found that she enjoyed keeping Henry company, reading him absurd books like ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ or ‘The Tale of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox.’ She resolved to get the Perks a book of wizarding fairytales to read to him as well.

When the week finally started drawing to an end she found that she was almost unreasonably sad. She had only known the family for a week and yet she already felt like she and Lisa were fitting in. They rolled down for breakfast with Sally in the mornings and spent their time doing whatever the rest of the family was doing. It was so different from anything else she had ever experienced, so manic and madcap in a way that seemed a lot more confined than Hogwarts. She had thought that Sally had been a handful, but when her father got going on the subject of motorcycles, or her mother started to talk about old muggle literature, they were just as animated as either of their children.

On the final night they sat round a fire in the sitting room and Sally’s parents read them a Christmas story all about a horrible creature that had tried to steal Christmas. Mr Perks did the voices of all the characters, sneaking round the room to play the mischievous Grinch, Mrs Perks watched him tolerantly as he sneaked right up behind Henry while she was narrating and scared the life out of his son. By the time the story was done Henry was asleep, and Sally was nodding off on Lisa’s shoulder.

Lily yawned heavily and leaned back into the sofa, not wanting to go anywhere. She could just about make out Sally’s parents leaving the room, but then she was asleep as well.

***

They woke up the next morning to find breakfast ready and waiting for them and two owls fluttering out of the window, a bemused Mrs Perks watching them leave, “Your parents,” She said as the girls entered, “Have informed me that they will be picking you up at ten o clock.”

Lily nodded, “Did my parents say how they were getting here?” She asked, wondering whether she should explain in advance about the different sorts of wizarding transportation.

“They said they’d be, uh, ‘appareaing’?”

“Apparating?”

“That’s it.”

“What’s apparating?” Mr Perks asked, navigating his way from the front door to the table all without taking his nose out of his newspaper.

“Uh, it’s where you’re in one spot, then you spin around and you’re in another place.” Lily’s parents had never fully explained apparition to her, apparently terrified she would try it out and splinch herself.

“Good lord,” Mr Perks peered over the top of his glasses, “You mean like teleportation?”

Lily resisted the urge to shrug, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t get started,” Mrs Perks said warningly, “Once he gets going on Star Trek,” She explained to Lily and Lisa, “There’s just no stopping him.”

“But dear,” He could have been serious, but Lily saw the swift wink he dropped their way, “The ramifications could be incredible, not just for the present but for the future!”

“What’s Star Trek?” She asked Lisa as they tucked in.

“Old muggle telelvision programme about explorers in space.”

Lily considered that, wondering why Lisa was smiling while looking at her, “What? Do I have something on my face?”

“It’s not that, it’s just that you’re so funny when you’re not in your element. Like when we’re at school you’re the one who knows everything about the wizarding world and magic, and Sally’s the one who’s always ask question. Now we’re at her house…” Lisa trailed off, shrugging, “Just struck me as funny.”

“Well I guess you’re halfway between, so you know everything about both worlds.”

“Not everything. I didn’t know anything about your family, but I bet all the pure bloods would have.”

Mr Perks chose that moment to come back into the conversation, “What’s a pure blood?”

Lisa swallowed a huge mouthful, “Someone who’s born to wizarding parents. Muggles are people without magic, and muggle-borns are their children, then there are half-bloods, like me.”

“And you’re okay with using those words?” He sounded incredulous.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well they’re a bit, I don’t know, dear?”

“Prejudiced is the word you’re after,” Mrs Perks sat down, “And it’s not like we don’t do that as well. We’ve been calling Sally’s school ‘that magic school’ ever since she got the letter.”

“I know, but half-bloods? It just sounds so old fashioned.”

There was an awkward silence at the table, which was unfortunate because it gave Lily time to think about what Mr Perks had just said. She had always known that people like the Malfoys hated muggles, and used all sorts of horrible words to describe them, or muggle-born wizards and witches. She had never even thought about the words she used, and especially hadn’t thought that they might be just as bad as the words Draco used.

She exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Lisa, and could tell that she had been thinking exactly the same thing. They had a short silent-best-friends conversation, and Lily guessed that Lisa wanted to talk about it properly at some point. She didn’t think they would have a chance to before they split up for Christmas though, and as soon as they rose from the table she heard the distinctive double crack of her parent’s apparition.

“What was that?” Mrs Perks was looking around for the source of the noise.

Lily sighed, “That would be apparition Mr Perks, my parents have just arrived in your back garden.”

“Really?” He looked as excited as a child at, well, Christmas, as he looked round to the back door where they was a sharp knocking. “How very exciting,” He stood and went to the door, swinging it open, “Hello there,” He said, beaming, “You must be Lily’s mum and dad?”

Lily’s parents looked to each other, then adopted the thin smiles Lily was so used to seeing, “Indeed. I am Selene and this is my husband Vincent Moon, may we come inside?”

“Of course, come in, come in, will you stay for a cup of tea?”

“We would not want to impose…”

“No imposition,” Mrs Perks bustled forwards, “I’ve already got the kettle on.”

“Very well, black no sugar for me and my husband will have two sugars, no milk.”

Neither of the Perks seemed to know quite what to make of Lily’s parents, who were dressed in their most formal muggle clothes and standing ramrod straight in the kitchen. “Good morning Lily,” Her mother said, “Have you had a nice time here?”

“Yes mother,” Lily said quietly, “Mr and Mrs Perks have been very friendly.”

“Thank you both,” Mrs Moon said, accepting a mug of tea from Mrs Perks, “Lily hasn’t had many friends in the past, and it’s nice to see her fitting in so well.”

“Well, Sally makes friends with almost everyone she runs into, and I know she’s enjoyed having your daughter as a friend.”

They heard a car pulling up on the drive outside, and Lisa sprang from the table, “That’ll be my parents!” She said, a little too loudly, and rushed to the front door.

“So do you have any plans for Christmas?” Mrs Perks asked in a desperate attempt at small talk, “We plan on having a stay at home Christmas personally.”

“My husband and I will be visiting family over the holiday. Normally Lily would join us, but she is intent on staying with her friends for most of the time we would normally spend visiting the Malfoys.”

Lily’s father mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘wise choice’ but before anyone could question him Lisa came back in with her mother and father in tow. “Everyone, this is my mum Katie and my dad Richard.”

“Very nice to meet you all,” Katie managed to relieve the tension in the room almost immediately, going from parent to parent and shaking everyone’s hands, Richard following her lead from the opposite direction. “Lisa has been telling us all about you two of course,” She said to Lily and Sally, “It seems like you’ve made a good time of Hogwarts.”

Mr Perks had evidently spotted Katie’s wand, which was tucked safely into her handbag. “Ah, forgive my rudeness, but are you a witch?” He asked.

“Why yes, in fact, I was at school at the same time as ‘Leena and Vince here.”

Lily’s mother looked pained, “I thought I had left that nickname behind a long time ago.”

“Sorry about that,” Katie plonked herself down at the table, “Old habits and all. Well!” She surveyed the three girls who had banded together for support, “Who would have thought it? A Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff _and_ a Slytherin? You don’t do things by halves do you Lisa?” She spotted the question from Sally’s parents before they even asked it, “The houses at Hogwarts are usually quite separate. It can be a real effort to be friends with someone from another house.”

“Well that sounds very sad.”

“Most of my school friends were in my house,” Selene said primly, “My husband however…”

“Had a slightly higher class of friend,” Vincent muttered. “And I hate to be blunt, but time is ticking on.”

“Of course,” Mrs Perks was up in an instant, “We’ve been keeping you here with all our chatter,” She shook Selene’s hand, only somewhat gingerly, and smiled at Lily, “You’re welcome to stay anytime you like dear, and I’m glad you had a nice time here.”

“Thank you for having me,” Lily said quietly, bowing her head a little, “And thank you for taking me to the cinema Mr Perks; it was a lot of fun.”

Mr Perks was looking at her as if he hadn’t just spent a week in the same house as her, but he shook himself out of his thoughts and stood as well, “Of course, it was my pleasure. And do come again.”

“Very well,” Selene drew herself up and nodded to the room, “Come along Lily.”

Lily turned to her friends quickly and hugged Sally, “Thanks for having me over,” She whispered, “I’ll see you in a few days.”

Lisa gripped her forearm, “Hey, cheer up?”

Lily nodded and followed her parents out into the back garden, where she gripped her mother’s arm tightly as they apparated away.

 

 **AN:-** I will not name Lily’s parents Morticia and Gomez, I will not name Lily’s parents Morticia and Gomez, I will not name Lily’s parents Morticia and Gomez…

Vincent Moon isn’t very good in company is he? It’s interesting to me as a writer when characters just write themselves, without me even having to bother to think. The parents were mostly this. I just started writing Mr Perks and his entire personality was revealed. He’s an engineer, a bit of a nerd and frighteningly clever. He’s tall and thin, wears glasses to read the newspaper and wears woollen cardigan/sweater vest things with corduroy trousers. I didn’t actually plan any of that; I just had such an image of him after writing about two lines.

Lily’s parents are not this stuck up and uptight, they are just very uncomfortable in social situations. In the same way that Lily’s only experience of other magical children had been Draco Malfoy and co, all Lily’s parents really know is the disdain of the old pure blood families. They get a little antsy when meeting new people, and if those people are muggles as well it just adds to their discomfort. Vincent is named after Vincent Price, Selene is named after the main character from _Underworld_.

Katie Turpin was named the second I thought ‘and Lisa’s mother is called…’ She sprang fully formed into my head as well. A lot like Tonks, but deceptively graceful. She looks like she’d knock things over wearing Doc Martens and a heavy Bomber Jacket, but then she’ll hex you six ways to Sunday before you even speak.

Mr Turpin (with the pun for a name) and Mrs Perks were much harder to write. Mrs Perks is frazzled, because she has to deal with both Sally and Henry, but beyond this I have nothing.

What film did they see? It should be easy enough to guess, and that bit with Lily going all fangirl is the single favouritest thing I have ever written. If someone wanted to do fanart for some of the scenes in this little fic, hint hint…

Okay, time to wrap this up, so please leave a little review for me to read, I thrive off the things.


	14. Christmas at Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally meet Lily's parents

Chapter Fourteen: Christmas at Home

 

They spun to a halt in the back garden of their own house, Lily almost throwing up into the roses. She had forgotten quite how much she hated side-along apparition. Her mother gave her a worried look and knelt down to rest a hand on her shoulder, “Are you okay darling?”

“I’m fine mother,” She gasped, leaning in to the hug which her mother gave her, “It’s very nice to see you.” She pulled away from her mother and was pulled straight into her father’s rib cracking embrace.

“Come on,” Her mother said, taking her by the hand and leading her towards the house, “Let’s get inside and have a proper chat about your lessons.”

They went into the living room and sat in the armchairs by the fireplace, Lily perching on the edge with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Vincent swept to his usual place and sank into it gratefully, Selene taking the seat next to him, “So,” She said when she had got comfortable, “Charms?”

Lily nodded, “Flitwick is a good teacher, and I’ve been progressing very quickly. I have mastered most of the charms we’ve tried so far, and I’ve started to look ahead in the book, and my practice with them has actually gone quite well.”

“And you’re not worried you might be overtaxing yourself by trying to work ahead of yourself? I know that Transfiguration is hard, and Severus Snape must be quite a taskmaster when it comes to learning Potions.”

“Lisa is very good at Transfiguration, so she helps me, and we all work together for Potions, so I’m learning it quite well.”

Selene nodded, “I remember that when I was at Hogwarts my friends and I worked together on our History of Magic homework together all the time. Although that was more because we took it in turns to be the one who took notes while the others caught up on sleep.” She smiled at Vincent, who nodded and leaned forwards.

“And what about your other subjects? The core groups are important, but you said in your letters that you had discovered an affinity for Herbology?”

“Yes father,” She shifted in her chair a little, “I think it’s fascinating to see the progress the plants can make, and knowing how the ingredients we use in potions have been prepared helps me to understand potions better. It’s a much more interesting subject than I’d have thought it was.”

“And how about your life outside of lessons?” Vincent asked, “We’ve met your friends, but what about the people in your house?”

Lily didn’t know how to answer. The one thing she didn’t want was for her parents to worry about her while she was at school, but they had surely been through something similar, having people like Lucius Malfoy in their house. She decided that it would be better to tell them at least part of the truth, because they would know exactly what other Slytherins were like.

“Pansy Parkinson isn’t very nice to me, and most of the girls are her friends. Draco Malfoy is almost idolised by the boys, and he doesn’t like me very much. But Daphne Greengrass is quite nice and she’s very good with Charms as well, so we talk about them a lot.”

“And what about people outside of Slytherin, are you friends with anyone apart from Lisa and Sally?”

“Well,” Lily shrugged, “Being in Slytherin seems to give you a bad reputation, so people don’t usually talk to me that much. Some of the Ravenclaws talk to me in history of Magic or Magical Theory but usually just to ask questions or talk about the lesson.”

“Well I’m glad people are at least talking to you,” Selene said, “Back when I was in school people wouldn’t even have talked to someone in Slytherin.”

They had never told her that before, “Why not?” She asked curiously.

“Something rather unpleasant happened a few years before we were at school, and Slytherin weren’t exactly popular for a few years after that.”

“What happened?”

Vincent started to say something, but Selene glared at him, “I don’t think the whole story is really appropriate for you to hear,” She said, “Maybe when you’re older.”

Lily knew better than to try and argue when her mother decided not to tell her something. Instead she looked from one parent to the other, “So has anything exciting happened while I’ve been away?”

Vincent shook his head, “Work continues much as it always has. We accepted a new contract with Nimbus, but the numbers are proving difficult.”

“What do they want you to work out?”

“When they develop new broomsticks the general aim is more speed and manoeuvrability, but the equations they’re working with at the moment aren’t producing powerful enough results. The wood shakes apart, and if it doesn’t then the wind rushing into players’ faces isn’t being deflected enough. The spells are an intrinsic part of the wood with brooms, so the numbers have to be exact.”

Lily smiled at her father’s speech. He normally wouldn’t have cared one bit for broomsticks, but suddenly he was seeing a side of them he could understand. She looked to her mother, who smiled back, “I’ve been working on a new textbook actually. It’s about advanced defensive magic for auror trainees to study. I’m mostly working with other people, but I get to write a chapter or two.”

“And your novel?”

“On hold until I can earn a little money. My publishers have been very understanding.”

It was something of a family in-joke. Selene’s publishers might have been more easy going than someone else, but they still bombarded the house almost daily asking if the next book was ready. Selene specialised in literature about muggle adventurers, but she also had a very profitable series following the adventures of a muggle school. The first book had been published when Selene was barely out of Hogwarts, and there were talks about turning it into a radio production soon.

“We heard from Peter that Harry Potter is the new Gryffindor Seeker,” Her father’s tone held a reminder that she hadn’t written to them to tell them anything about her term, but he moved on quickly, “I suppose the first match must have been exciting?”

“Well,” Lily wondered whether any other news about the events of the match had got out, “His broom went crazy halfway through the match and he nearly fell off, but he managed to catch the snitch anyway. Actually,” She amended, “He practically swallowed it.”

“So where does that put Gryffindor in the House Championship?”

“Right behind us actually.” Ravenclaw had dropped into third after the match, something Lily had wasted no time in reminding Lisa of.

“Good to hear that Slytherin are still keeping up a good quality of work,” Her father said. “There is a proud tradition of our house winning that cup. Back in our day it was always neck and neck whether it would be us or Ravenclaw.”

Lily shrugged, “Gryffindor have been doing quite well actually, especially in our year. Hermione Granger is really smart.”

“And have you had a chance to talk to this Hermione?” Her mother asked, “It seems like the two of you would have a lot in common.”

“Well she kind of hangs around with Harry Potter, and he doesn’t like Slytherins very much...” She left the rest unsaid, but her parents knew.

“It’s a shame that the house loyalties are so deeply ingrained even into people who don’t know about them. People just follow their house without really _thinking._ ” It was an old argument of her father’s, and one he wheeled out whenever they had friends over. Lily had often heard him sitting around with the Grissoms or the Stewarts, debating late into the night over a bottle of fine wine as to whether the House system was a good or bad idea.

“I don’t think it’s house loyalties with him,” Lily said fairly, “I think he just met Draco Malfoy a bit too early.”

“Ah,” That was more than enough for Vincent, who leaned back in his big armchair and folded his hands on his stomach, “Well it’s no good trying to be friends with people who don’t appreciate it anyway. Far better to stick with people who understand you.”

Lily nodded, and they sat in silence for a short while before Selene clapped her hands, “Well, I think that‘s enough serious talk. Let e get something on for lunch and we can have a proper family Christmas.”

“Do you mean,” Lily started cautiously, “That we’re not going to be going round to the Malfoys or the Greengrasses this Christmas?”

“I think that we haven’t seen nearly enough of you,” Selene said as she stood and swanned her way into the kitchen, “And I don’t want to have to share you with the cousins.”

Lily looked to her father, whose face had crinkled into one of his rare smiles, and found that she suddenly felt rather giddy. She jumped up and hugged him, then followed her mother into the kitchen.

***

They spent the afternoon sitting around reading some of the muggle fairytales Mrs Perks had recommended, laughing at the absurd depictions of magic that could be found in them, and as the evening drew in Selene gave a dramatic reading from her latest work, in which the new first years at the muggle high school encountered their first older year bully. Far from Pansy Parkinson and her own experiences, Lily was able to laugh at the over the top antics of the heroic first years, who soon bested the bully with little more than wits and courage.

 _I’ve got one;_ she thought as her mother bowed to an imaginary crowd, _I just wish I had more of the second._

Finally it was time for a last drink of milk and she was sent off to bed to await the morning, where her presents would have mysteriously appeared at the foot of her bed. She didn’t quite know when she had stopped believing in San D’Klass and realised that it was her parents doing, but every year they continued to go through the same ritual, and as she pulled the covers over her head and closed her eyes, she was very grateful for it.

***

The next day couldn’t have been any better. She woke early to find the usual pile of presents and immediately set about dragging them through to her parents’ room, along with the gifts that she’d bought them before heading off to Hogwarts. She piled her stuff onto the bed and got to unwrapping as her parents conjured cups of strong coffee and tried to wake up. By the time she was halfway through they were properly awake and exchanged their own gifts, her mother receiving a beautiful gold broach from her father and a lovely new quill that Lily had spotted in Diagon Alley while they were shopping for her school things. Her father received a book on new theories in Arithmancy from Lily and a brand new set of dress robes from her mother.

Lily found herself surrounded by books, her favourite gift, and with a new scarf resting atop the lot. The scarf was a shiny silver material that looked almost like it was glowing in the morning light. She ran her fingers over the soft fabric and admired it, remembering that Slytherin did have two colours, and one of them she liked. Her books included two textbooks of higher level spells and a variety of fiction, both muggle and wizarding.

They spent the day being very lazy, an experience Lily was still getting used to. Her parents didn’t even get out of bed until nearly half eight, and they had their breakfast sitting in the front room and listening to the wireless. Selene brought her writing table down with her and broke in her new quill with a new chapter of the defensive magics textbook while her father lost himself in the world of numbers required to make a broomstick fly.

While normally her parents did all of their cooking by magic, Christmas lunch was one of the few times they rolled up their sleeves and made a valiant attempt at using the increasingly new fangled ovens. Back in their day, they told Lily every single year, they hadn’t had as many spells to cook things, and so all cooking was done by hand, and if you wanted to experience a proper Christmas lunch then it had to be entirely without magic. Then they put her on duty peeling carrots and potatoes.

Lunch wasn’t ready until half past two, and by the time they had made it through the starter, then a huge rack of beef and portions of vegetables that would normally have lasted them for a week, and finally a chocolate pudding that could at best be described as ‘generous’ it was nearly four, and they were far too full to even think about leaving the house. Instead Vincent suggested that they work on their cleaning spells, and then enjoy whatever happened to be on the wireless.

Lily wholeheartedly agreed, and very shortly the effects of good eating and being back at home conspired to send her happily off to sleep.

***

The next day dawning sleepily over their house, and once more her parents slept late, and let her have a much needed lie in as well. When she finally made it downstairs she discovered two parcels waiting for her on the kitchen table, her mother sitting next to them and watching them closely, “It appears your friends have sent you something,” She said, “I hope you thought to do the same?”

Lily nodded, holding up the bag that she had managed to keep hidden while she had been round the Perks. It had a raven shaped pendant she had seen in a shop in Cambridge for Lisa, and one of her own books of wizarding fairytales for the Perks. “I meant to send them last night,” She said sheepishly.

“I’m sure it will be okay,” Her mother took the gifts and waved her wand, wrapping them in glittery paper and levitating them over to the fireplace, “Get the floo powder dear?”

Lily chucked some floo powder in, followed by the presents. The gifts would be sent to the central floo office, and then on to Sally and Lisa’s before lunch.

“Now, let’s see what they’ve sent you.”

Lily sat and pulled the gifts in front of her, noting that both of them felt an awful lot like clothes. She chose to unwrap Lisa’s first, and was rewarded with a jacket made out of some sort of navy material. It felt almost stiff to the touch and was accompanied by a note, _Now this is definitely an outer-outer thing. Hope you like it._

There was also a shirt of the sort Sally liked wearing, soft cotton with short sleeves. Thankfully Lisa hadn’t gone with the sorts of colours Sally liked wearing as well. Instead the shirt was a pale grey colour which looked close enough to silver that she thought she would probably get away with wearing it around the school.

She moved on to Sally’s gift and smiled as a pair of jeans fell out. They were the same colour and material as the jacket, and the note explained that they should fit her perfectly. She laid the whole outfit out on the desk and examined it, wondering just when Sally and Lisa had conspired to get her a matching outfit, and smiled as her mother rested a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sure it will look lovely,” She said, a little uncertain. Her father chose that moment to come stumping in, trying to fix the belt on his robes properly, and saw the clothes.

“Is that what muggles are wearing these days?” He asked, eyeing the jeans.

“Yes dear, just like they’ve been wearing for the last forty years.”

“I’m getting some,” He announced, abandoning the belt entirely, “Anything has to be better than these blasted robes getting bunched in the wrong places all the time.”

Lily giggled as her mother sighed and made a visible effort to restrain herself from commenting. “I’m going to go and get changed,” She told them, scooping up her clothes and escaping to her room.

When she had dressed and returned to the kitchen her father’s belt had been tied properly and her mother was back in her seat sipping her coffee and glaring at her husband whenever he turned around.

“I thought we might go to the village and see if we can catch a good play,” Selene said, “Unless you had any better ideas for today?”

Lily gave her mother a sly look, “Well...”

***

“That was certainly an experience,” Her father said a few hours later as they left the cinema.

“I know,” Her mother’s eyes were shining, “Wasn’t it just wonderful? Who knew that the muggles could do something like that?” The wheels in her head were almost visibly turning, “I wonder if it would be possible to adapt something like that for us as well?”

“That would depend,” Lily sensed one of her parents’ deep discussions coming on, “What spells exactly would you use to record and then project the image again?”

“Well obviously some of it would have to be done mechanically. Do you know how they record the images Lily?”

Lily shook her head, but it didn’t matter, her parents were off now, and such an exciting and new topic would last them until at least dinnertime.

As it was it lasted them the whole of the rest of the day, and as Lily went to bed her mother was still declaring her intention to write a script for her next work instead of a novel. As she settled in to sleep Lily decided that it had probably been the best Christmas ever.


	15. Back to School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter where they go back to school

Chapter Fifteen: Back to School

 

“Girls, if you don’t hurry up we’re going to be late!”

Katie Turpin was generally a very laid back woman, but when Sally was searching Lisa’s room for the fourth time trying to find her missing pair of socks the girls saw why she was such a brilliant defensive magic teacher. Her wand was starting to spit sparks as she bustled her daughter to the door, “Take out some of those books Lisa, or you won’t even be able to lift that trunk.”

Lily sat quietly at the kitchen table, her trunk already loaded and a book open in front of her. She had quite wisely got packed the night before, and so was spared the whirlwind that Mrs Turpin could become. They had thought that Mr Turpin was the more manic of the pair, with his tendency to take them on long hikes through the countryside, but when it came to deadlines Katie was not to be trifled with.

The last week had flown by, and now that they were heading back to Hogwarts Lily wished it could have gone on even longer. Lisa’s family were just as inviting as Sally’s, but it was a lot easier to connect with them. They spent some evenings practicing spells out in the back garden, Katie taking time to put up powerful cloaking spells so none of the muggles could see what they were going. She showed them some of the more powerful duelling spells she knew, and on New Year’s Eve conjured a dazzling display of fireworks for them.

Lisa came back into the kitchen, looking slightly flushed and carrying an armful of books. Lily had suspected that Lisa would own a lot of books, but even she couldn’t have guessed quite how many. Lisa’s room was almost entirely bookcases, and the mattresses they slept on had been surrounded by little piles of books as well. They covered every sort of literature imaginable, muggle and wizarding, and more than a few advanced spellbooks. Lily even recognised some as books that her mother had worked on or written.

They had spent most of the week recovering from Christmas, which had been excessive in everyone’s case. The quieter life at the Turpin’s had been just what they needed to get ready for school again. Lily felt like she was able to face anything that Pansy could throw at her now, and by some miracle they had even got all of their Christmas homework completed as well, though it had taken rather a lot of corralling to get Sally to sit down for long enough to finish an essay.

Eventually they managed to get themselves sorted out, and everyone piled into the back of Mr Turpin’s Ford Escort so he could drive them to Platform 93/4. Lily still wasn’t used to cars, and when they got onto the motorway she simply closed her eyes and hoped it would all be over soon.

Despite Mrs Turpin’s predictions of doom they made it to King’s Cross Station with time to spare, and bundled onto the train near the front. Lisa said goodbye to her mum while Lily and Sally went searching for a compartment, and then they were all aboard as the train rattled away back to school, Sally cooing to Tabby to make him quiet down. They had barely gone five minutes before Sally’s usual buoyant nature returned in full force.

“Why didn’t you like driving Lily?” She asked.

The Slytherin shrugged and turned to look out of the window as they shot through London. No matter how close the train got to other buildings, or when they passed side by side with another train, none of the muggles would ever notice it. She smiled, remembering all the reasons her parents had given her before finally just admitting that it was all magical. Her favourite was still ‘they just don’t look hard enough do they?’ She liked the idea that there were some people that never looked hard enough to see things that were right in front of their noses, though she would have added quite a few wizards to that list as well.

Sally was still chattering, “Because it just seems to me like a car isn’t that much different from a train. I mean sure a car is being directed by someone, so it could turn in any direction it wanted instead of just following the tracks, but it’s not like they go much faster, and the shaking and movement on a train is even worse sometimes than in a car. And you’re okay on the Hogwarts Express, but I saw you in the car and you were closing your eyes and looking like you were going to be sick and it just made me wonder.”

“Sally,” Lisa said, sending a smile to Lily, “Calm down.”

“But how can I calm down because we’re going back to Hogwarts again and it’s absolutely incredible because I keep suddenly thinking like ‘Hey, I have a wand and I learn magic now, they’d think this was awesome at Wymondham College or Cringleford Primary School,’ but of course I can’t tell them anything about it because that’s not allowed.” She was winding herself up into truly astonishing levels of excitement now. The last time Lily had seen her this excited they had just been ejected out of a water chute, or possibly when they had been about to douse Malfoy and Pansy in whipped cream.

“Maybe we should practice some magic?” Lisa suggested.

Sally actually jumped off her seat with excitement at the suggestion, and Lily took advantage of the distraction to slide up next to Lisa, “Good idea, tell the very excitable witch with the very excitable wand to start doing magic.”

“Help me?” Lisa muttered back.

“Oh no, I think this calls for some sort of rule. The one who puts the silly idea into Sally’s head is the one who has to help her clear it up afterwards.”

Lisa mock-glared at her, “I’ll get you for that you little snake.”

As Sally turned back to them, wand in hand, Lily nodded, “In this situation, it’s better to slither away than get shot out of the air birdie.”

Lisa drew her own wand and stood and she and Sally faced each other, “How about a bit of levitation?” Lisa suggested, and Sally nodded enthusiastically, turning on one of her pieces of luggage.

“Wingardium Leviosa!” She called, and swished and flicked as hard as she could.

The trunk raised about a foot off the rack and floated into the middle of the carriage, where it started to turn slow cartwheels in the air. “Hey!” Lisa said in shock, “How are you doing that?”

“I dunno,” Sally was rotating her wrist and watching the trunk intently, “I was just messing around with this in the dorm one time and I started twisting my wrist and my book started to spin.”

“I have to try this,” Lisa announced, bringing her own trunk into the centre of the carriage. She twisted her wrist and it promptly dropped to the floor, narrowly missing Tabby’s cat-basket. “Oh,” She said disappointedly, “I don’t get it.”

“Let me try,” Lily stood and drew her wand, levitating her own trunk as well and bringing it into the middle of the room, where Sally’s was still lazily rolling across the ceiling. Lily watched her friend carefully, then tried her best to emulate the movement. She was rewarded with a pathetic sort of bellyflop from her trunk, which then sank onto the seat despite her best efforts to keep it airborne.

“Harder than it looks, isn’t it?” Lisa commented, charming her own trunk up again, “It’s quite a neat trick Sally.”

“Really?” Sally lost concentration as she turned to her friends, and her trunk careened into a window, cracking it. “I just thought it was fun.”

“Sally, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Lily watched Lisa fail again and tried her own trunk again, “Is there anything you don’t find fun?”

“Well,” Sally actually seemed to be considering the question very seriously, “You-Know-Who doesn’t sound very fun, and the Ministry of Magic sounds very boring, and Professor Snape isn’t much fun, even though potions is fun when things explode.”

“I think our lessons should be taught by people like you Sally,” Lily grinned as her own trunk finally managed a full rotation, although it fell immediately onto the seat again, “People who actually think the lessons are interesting.”

“That’s not totally fair,” Lisa was still having trouble, “Flitwick finds his lesson exciting, and Sprout can get really into plants.”

“Yeah, but can you imagine McGonagall ever cracking a smile? Or Quirrel?”

“Good point. I couldn’t even tell you half of what we’re supposed to have learned in Defence this year; it’s just so hard to concentrate when he keeps getting diverted by how scary Cornish Pixies are.”

“Cornish Pixies are scary,” Sally protested, “They’ve got horrible little faces and they glow in the dark and they tangle your hair and cause all sorts of mayhem.”

“Well, compared to werewolves and vampires and dangerous curses, Cornish pixies are hardly the worst thing out there, are they?” Lisa said reasonably, getting irritated with her inability to roll the trunk and giving it a jab. Her trunk responded by flying into a wall, bouncing off and clattering back into Tabby’s basket. The cat let out a horrified mewl and they had to stop practicing while Sally spent another five minutes getting him calm again.

By the time they had gotten the cat calm, back into his basket, and cleaned most of the blood off their arms from where he had scratched them, the witch was coming round pushing the food cart. They bought their usual assortment of sweets and Sally had a long chat with the witch about what she thought of Cornish Pixies, and they sat to eat.

“Pilchards,” Sally related to them, chewing happily on a Bertie Bott’s, “So what happens this term?”

“Well first off we’ve got the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw Quidditch match,” Lisa said, “So I have to ask,” She rounded on Lily, “Which side are you going to be on?”

“Do I have to pick one?”

“Of course you do!” Lisa exclaimed, “This is Quidditch, the pride of the houses, and one of your friend’s, rests on the outcome of this match. You can’t sit on the fence.”

“Could I sit with the Gryffindors?” Lily suggested weakly. Sally was now sitting beside Lisa and they were both looming over her, looking very serious.

“Absolutely not!” Sally told her, “You don’t want Gryffindor to win the Quidditch Cup this year, because you’re friends with us, so it has to be either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.”

“Well I suppose Ravenclaw have probably got the stronger team, but everyone says that the Hufflepuffs have really been putting the work in this year so maybe I should support the team which has put the most effort in?”

“Most effort?” Lisa pointed an accusing finger at Sally, “Hufflepuff have been practicing once and week, and never if it rains. They do team building stuff inside when it rains.”

“But isn’t Quidditch a team game?” Sally retorted.

“Only _rubbish_ teams would say that.” Lily honestly couldn’t tell if Lisa was joking anymore. “Ravenclaw have been out in all weather, aiming to take that title from Slytherin this year, and what with Gryffindor blowing past them in game one, we’ve got a chance this year as long as we can take Gryffindor. The only one training harder has been Oliver Wood himself.”

“Yeah, but you saw how good Harry was,” Lily pointed out, regretting it immediately when Lisa turned back to her, “I mean, unless you put him in the Hospital Wing right before the game then surely he’d just snatch victory for Gryffindor?”

“So!” Lisa shrieked, and suddenly her voice sounded a lot like Pansy Parkinson, “You’ve thrown your lot in with that rabble in Gryffindor! I cannot let such an insult pass! Good lady, I challenge you to a duel!”

And she drew her wand and jabbed Lily in the side with it. “Hey!” Lily protested, finding her own wand and jabbing back. Lisa jabbed again and Lily scrambled to her feet, raising her wand like a sword before her, Lisa copied her, and they had a short but brutal fencing match in the middle of the cabin, stopped only when Sally, seizing her opportunity, jabbed Lisa from behind, catching her in a rather sensitive area.

“Treachery!” Lisa somehow managed to keep her giggles under control as she clamped a hand over her poked posterior, “Hufflepuff and Slytherin ganging up on Ravenclaw! Where’s a Gryffindor when you need one?”

Lily and Sally exchanged a look, then dropped their wands on the seat behind them and tackled Lisa down into the other seat, where an even shorter tickling war began, ending when they were all sprawled across the cabin, panting and still in a rather advance state of giggles.

***

“We should get into our robes,” Lily said when the sun started to set outside; “We’ll be there soon.”

“Hey!” Sally said suddenly, pointing at Lily.

“Yes?”

“You’re not in robes!”

“No.”

“And you’re not in the clothes that Lisa and I got you for Christmas?”

“Nope,” It was true, Lily was wearing a dark blue shirt with buttons down the front and a black skirt which reached down to her knees.

“Those look very nice,” Lisa was examining her as well now, and Lily felt a blush rising on her cheeks. “Where did you get them?”

“Well I wore them on Boxing Day, and my father liked them, and I really liked them, so when my parents brought my trunk over to your house, they had packed some new clothes that they bought me.”

“So you’ve got more muggle clothes?”

“Yep, much better than the formal clothes we used to wear on special occasion where we were around muggles.”

Lisa looked uncertain, “And are you going to be wearing your new muggle clothes?”

“I think so,” Lily knew what Lisa was really asking, and she made a valiant attempt at telepathy to let her friend know that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to attract even more attention from the Slytherins, or if she wanted to just do what made her happy.

Sally was oblivious to this moment, choosing instead to bounce over and hug Lily tightly, “Well I think you’ll look really cool, oh!” Her eyes went wide, “Do you have trainers?”

“I think so,” There had been some shoe-like things tucked into the very bottom of her trunk, but they had apparently been made out of cloth instead of leather, so Lily wasn’t quite sure if she was supposed to wear them outside.

“You have to try trainers, trainers are so much fun!” And still jabbering about trainers, Sally started to pull on her robes.

They got dressed quickly, two of them standing in front of the window so the third could quickly pull off any heavy outer muggle clothes and get into her robes. By the time they were all ready the train was beginning to slow down and pull into the station, Sally collected the poor traumatised Tabby, who was quivering at the back of his basket, and they went out onto the platform.

They didn’t have to go on the boats to get to Hogwarts this time; instead Hagrid led them over to the gates where horse-drawn carriages rested, minus the horses. The three of them climbed into one and watched in amazement as the carriages took off of their own accord. “How do they pull them?” Sally asked in wonder.

“I don’t know,” Lily said, staring at the front of their own carriage, which was rocking gently as though a horse was attached, “But I’m going to guess magic.”

“Maybe it’s like an invisible horse,” Sally said, watching the carriage next to them as though hypnotised by it.

“Don’t be silly,” Lily said, tearing her gaze away, “It’s probably just a clever enchantment.”

They were brought right to the front gates and deposited on the steps, leaving them to make their way through the Entrance Hall and into the Great Hall, where the houses were just gathering for dinner. They smiled and exchanged quick hugs, then went off to join their respective houses.

Lisa slid right into the middle of what looked like a good discussion in development and joined right in, the Ravenclaws shifting naturally to accept another debater into their midst. Her dormmate Morag smiled at her and slid closer, and in between lulls in the debate asked her how her holiday had gone. Soon enough they had struck up their own conversation which had turned into a debate about the magical influences on Christmas.

It was the Ravenclaw house at their finest, Lisa decided happily, when everyone was in a good mood and eager to debate on their favourite subjects, and you could always be assured of finding someone who shared similar interests in your house. Smiling happily she felt like she was settling back into where she should be.

Sally was having a similar time at her own table. She had ended up in the middle of the second years, and they had decided that the addition of this bubbly first year called for celebration and cake, and within ten minutes they all had the others’ life stories, slightly confused by everyone trying to tell everyone else’s story, and were gearing up for a quick spectacular sugar rush comedown the next morning.

Lily was not having such a good time. Once more she found herself perched right on the end of the bench, as far away from her year mates as she could manage, trying to ignore Pansy’s shrieks of laughter at whatever inane story Malfoy was telling. She chewed morosely on her food and stared about the hall, wishing once more that she could have been in a house where she actually felt like she belonged.


End file.
